I have seen Letty. I had steeled myself against the meeting, with a cold, panicky dread. Yet, when the actual test came, I was amazed at my self-possession. The inevitable thing is, after all, the easiest thing to do. It was so, I remember, with my first test in battle, the question of courage, which had so tortured my imagination, clarified itself with the first command. I answered it, as others did, because, I think, there was no choice.
So, the moment that the crisis arose, I knew it would have to be gone through,—that I would have to meet her eyes and his without a false movement. It had to be done, and I did it, as calmly and as naturally as though I had lied all my life. And yet, there was one awful moment for me,—and for her, too.
They had motored over for luncheon and I knew that they would arrive about one o’clock. I debated and made a dozen decisions, changing them immediately. I would wait until all the company was assembled and meet them in the confusion of the crowd. I even contemplateda morning canter, timing my ride so as to meet them on my return, and obtain some clue of the exact situation in the advantage of the hasty informality. For I felt a cold dread of the test. What had she told him? Was I to act as a chance acquaintance, or as an old friend? If I pretended ignorance, my attitude might rouse his suspicions immediately. Yet if I called her by her first name and showed the knowledge of an intimate, I might precipitate a dangerous situation. I must take my cue from her, holding myself alertly on my guard.
At the last moment, at the sound of their entering the driveway, I did the thing I had not even considered. I went out on the porch and stood forth openly to greet them, curiously calm and ready for any turn, now that it was a question of danger. Yet I loathed the dissimulation I could not escape. The next instants seemed leaden. The car drove up. I looked at Ben, steadily, controlling my glance. Fortunately, he was nearest to me.
“Hello, there, old fellow!”
“Hello, Ben,” I said, in my heart a great thankfulness.
“Bon jour, Monsieur, my brother-in-law; you have not forgotten me?”
I looked. I had to look. Letty’s shadowy eyes—calm, even a trifle amused—were on me, and no more trace of emotion than was in her voice.
“The idea! But I did not expect to meet you again like this,” I heard myself saying, with all the banality of an accomplished society fop. Had there been a look of fear or distress in her eyes I might have faltered, but the self-possession roused my anger and that carried me through. I took the gloved hand (thank heaven it was gloved) and forced some sort of a smile to my face. Fortunately the others ran out, and the first test was over.
Luncheon ended, after coffee in the conservatory, Ben said:
“Davy, let’s take a tramp around the duck pond. There are some things I want to talk over with you.”
I rose and I know that my heart leaped. I saw Letty’s little fingers work slowly up the arms of her chair and her shoulders stiffen. That was all; but I, who knew Letty, knew what terror was beneath.
We bundled up and went out over the hard ground, and, as we turned the conservatory, I saw that Letty had taken up a position by the window. I did not dare look at her, for my own heart within me stood still, while I waited his first words. Everything required me to make some reference to his wife, and yet I could not do it. My tongue refused to move.
“The mater does not like my marriage, Davy,” he said finally, after he had waited for me to begin the conversation. “Oh, it’s nothing open; she’s too loyal for that, you know; but of course, their worlds are absolutely different. Still, I feel it, and I know that Letty feels it.”
“Yes, I suppose that would be so,” I said, forced to answer.
Again, he seemed to wait for something I should say and when I remained silent, he dropped into a silence, too. Presently, he began to whistle to himself, and so we came to the duck pond. The cabin we had built as children still stood, sagging and covered with moss.
“I can’t get Rossie out of my mind,” I said suddenly. “Remember the day he stepped into the hornet’s nest and had to dive into the pond?”
We stood on the rustic bridge, leaning over the rail, the white, solemn ducks waddling below us.
“Davy, will you answer me a direct question?”
I felt the moment approaching.
“Fire away.”
“Did you ever write back anything against Letty to the family?”
“What!”
He repeated the question, while for me the tension relaxed. Still, this might be only a preliminary.
“Ben, I have never written a word home mentioning your wife one way or the other.”
“You knew her well in Paris, didn’t you?”
“We were in the same crowd, yes.”
“Weren’t you a little bit in love with her at one time?”
“Frankly, yes; we all were.”
I had given my answers readily, for each question I had foreseen.
“Do you know, Davy,” he said, looking me in the face, “that I am beginning to think that you, too, do not approve.”
“That’s a hard question to answer, but since you’ve put it,—here goes. There’s been something closer between us, Ben, than other brothers. I think I would make any sacrifice for you and your happiness. I’m not thinking of Letty; I’m thinking of you. I know her world and I know yours. Her world is a world that takes everything lightly and is not bruised by disillusionments. You are different. If you should be unhappy, it would break you.”
“You don’t know her as I know her,” he broke in.
“No—of course not.” For a moment the hideous irony of it escaped me. Had it been any other man, I would have been willing to convince myself that Letty, like a thousand other women of her class, was capable, once her love awakened, of absolute loyalty and devotion. But did she really love him, beyond a caprice of the emotions? That was what I did not know.
“Ben, you know that I am always loyal, no matter whathappens. If it were a question of your good, old fellow, I would give my right arm.”
I held out my hand, and waited. If he could not bring himself to take it—but he did—though after some hesitation! The first test, thank God, was over. He could not have suspected and done that!
*****
What had we said to each other? What could I have said differently? I was caught in the iron grip of circumstance, and every word was dictated to me. I knew my brother, and I was afraid,—coldly, mortally afraid. Such men are capable of murder.
Then I told him of Bernoline. Some instinct warned me to do so, and the way his face cleared and the old affection returned confirmed my suspicions. Beneath all he had said (or not said) was something brooding. Only, in that case, the situation was more than ever fraught with danger.
We went back over the old days, when we four were the Littledale boys,—Big Dale, Little Dale, Tiny Dale, and Rossie, who was no Dale at all. With the clearing vista of years, I saw my brother as he was, and I was astonished to find in my new estimate a sense of personal superiority. He felt it, too, for once or twice he said something which showed me that he had a feeling of having stood still.
I told him of having seen Alan.
“I never liked him,” he said, without compromise, “and there’s no use pretending; but I’m glad he made good.” He turned to me, laying his hand on my arm for the first time. “Davy, there’s not been much luck in the family, has there? We’re out of existence—shot to pieces. And the other time doesn’t seem so very far ago,—the time when we romped and played like good, wholesome puppies. Rossie gone—Alan drifting about the world—youcrawling back by the skin of your teeth—I suppose there’s no use arguing with you about your going back?”
“None.”
“Well, if we don’t wake up and get into it, I’m going, myself,” he blurted out. “The mater, of course, is all for pacifism, but as for the Governor, I believe he’s just hanging on until we declare war.”
“I believe so, too.”
“Must seem strange to you, here.”
“Yes—strange.”
We each wished the interview over, I felt. With all our attempts at restoring the old intimacy, there was a constraint on us we couldn’t shake off.
*****
The first thing I saw, as we went back, was Letty’s face at the window of the conservatory. It was only a look, for she rose immediately and shifted her seat, but that look I shall never efface from my memory. She was no coward. Indeed, I have never known any woman with more of the reckless, devil-may-care attitude towards danger, but that vital hour, when she sat there and wondered, must have tried her soul.
When we entered she was consummately at ease. She did not appear to notice our coming, but once I caught her glancing furtively in the mirror, watching Ben.
I went on upstairs and there, in the old playroom, the tension I had been under snapped and my nerves went bad and, as I was doubled up, shivering and shaking, Molly found me. It must have frightened her out of her wits, to come upon me without warning, for by the time the spell was over, she was in my arms, weeping her heart out.
“Oh, Davy, you aren’t going back, like that!”
“Nonsense! It’s almost over—only, once in a while—when something excites me.”
“You’ve been talking to Ben,” she said, straightening up. “Davy, I don’tlikeher! And, what’s more, Ben isn’t happy!”
What could I say? I couldn’t look into my dear little sister’s clean eyes and counsel her to accept Letty with an open heart.
*****
I went back presently and joined the company. I knew that in public I must pay my brother’s wife some attention. To avoid her would be confession. She had quite recovered by this time and was her own malicious self again.
“Do you know, David, that you have neglected me shamefully?” she said aloud. “You were more gallant in Paris.”
I made some lame excuse. I do not remember what I muttered and, avoiding any intimacy, turned the conversation to common acquaintances. I cannot remember a more hideously disagreeable hour in all my life. Not that there was left any flicker of the old infatuation. The image of Bernoline had cleansed the old fever. I looked at Letty and, looking at her, wondered that I could meet her eyes without a tremor. She felt this, I know, and did not like the sensation for, despite the danger of the situation, her voice at times took on the old caressing tone and her eyes sparkled with the desire to entice. Our conversation was necessarily banal in the presence of others. It was not until they started to go that I found myself alone with her on the porch.
“I hope to God you did it because you love him,” I said, without premeditation.
“And if there was any other reason, Davy?” she said softly.
“He is quite capable of killing you. I give you a solemn warning.”
Her fur slipped to the ground and, as I recovered it, she said aloud:
“Thank you, my brother-in-law—and you will be sociable, and run over?”
Ben had come up as we were speaking, but her quick ear had detected his approach.
*****
The interview has left me quite in the dark. Why had she done it? Is she in love with Ben? Is there any change in the inner woman? Can she be held wholly and loyally by a man with whom she cannot trifle, before whom she is genuinely afraid? Was it the dramatic revenge that tempted her? Or was it just the instinct of social self-preservation, the fetich of that great god, Respectability, which dominates all such women? For, protest as they may, no matter how they rage against conventionalities, flout them openly or secretly, in the heart of each lawless woman, whether her situation be sheltered or ruthlessly exposed, is the slumbering veneration of the thing called respectability. Once passed the thirties, it becomes an obsession. Perhaps, after all, it was the safe haven of respectability that Letty sought, at the end of a few adventurous years. Perhaps, it was a combination of all these motives. But, of one thing I am certain,—Letty is afraid of her husband.