Christmas and the holidays have passed and certain incidents stand out vividly. My own personal perplexities have somehow receded into the healing background. Our sorrows destroy us or themselves, some one has said. There is a protecting instinct, perhaps, in the soul as well as in the body. The healing fluids of the eye isolate the intruding cinder, the membranes of the body wrap around the splinter which penetrates the flesh; so, insensibly, memory drops its curtains over our grief, until the pain is lessened, and in fainter perception, we can bear to look upon it. To the first poignant wrench of my longing for Bernoline has come a sort of healing incredulity. Is it a mood or an achieved attitude? Have I definitely risen to a new philosophy of acceptance, or will the old malaria of loneliness and emptiness return when I am most sure of equanimity? These are things I do not know.
I know only this: that of late I have been able to get out of myself, to return to an objective point of viewtowards life: that the old desire to play my part is new again; that I am not aloof but vibrantly a part of my day and my nation, thrilled with the sudden rising anger at temporizing that is sweeping the country,—a great, mounting, climactic storm of wrath. The hour is coming, I know, when America will show to the world and to itself the majesty of its indignant pride.
*****
Christmas night has always been open cheer with us and, with me home, the house was crowded with friends from the countryside and the village. They came in sleighs and cutters, with jingling bells, wrapped in voluminous scarfs, stamping in the great hallway, eager for the good cheer of a gathering which took them back to the rollicking days of Merrie England. Threescore, at least, and for every man, woman and child some present on the old tree. For we at Littledale have a custom that I don’t remember seeing elsewhere.
In the back of the house, between the two wings, is a stone-flagged court, and in the midst of it a splendid cedar. It was Rossie’s idea as a child to convert it into the Christmas symbol. So, promptly at ten, being well-fed from the buffet of roast pig, fatted ducks, great crisp turkeys, mountainous dishes of vegetables, pies and cakes to stagger the imaginations of the youngest eyes, every one bustles into coats and wraps and crowds out into the court. There, the green tree is ablaze with lanterns and tinsel wreaths, with a magnificent Santa Claus to distribute the presents, with appropriate hits at the idiosyncrasies of each recipient. The fiddles strike up from the dining room. We join hands and go circling round the tree, singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” until every one is exhausted from laughter and panting for breath, while the dogs go barking, in and out, frantic with the spirit of good cheer.
This year, on account of my father’s health, we were in some doubt. But the Governor, like the fine old trump that he is, insisted that nothing be changed and watched the celebration from an upper window. The rest of the night was given up to square dances with old man Carpenter calling out the figures from the midst of the village fiddles. I wondered, watching the Governor, if he would see another such Christmas, or, for that matter, how many would dance so light-heartedly again. The accent of the evening was absolute democracy,—every one privileged to dance with every one else,—without introductions, and much scrambling under the mistletoe.
Jenny, my first flame, was there,—a buxom matron, with three ravenous youngsters. And once the hazards of a quadrille brought us all together, Jenny, Ben, Letty, Anne, and myself. In one figure, Ben and I being opposite each other, Letty was at my side and Jenny at his. I looked up at him and wondered if he remembered the day, twelve years ago, when he saved me from utterly throwing away my life. And the irony of it all,—that I should have been away and powerless, when I should have stood in his stead. Letty’s behavior throughout the evening was outrageous, and Ben’s face grew blacker and blacker. She flirted openly with several young friends of Molly’s and deliberately with me, whenever she could bring it before the notice of Anne. Of course, knowing her of old, I realized that we were but the pretexts; that her real object was to torture Ben himself. And this alarmed me, for I saw already the progression towards tragedy.
“Letty, let me warn you again,” I said to her, as we were dancing. She had come to me herself, out of pure malice, and to refuse would have been an open affront.
“Go on, Davymio,” she said, under her breath.
“When Ben’s hands close about your little throat—they won’t let go,” I said savagely, “and I don’t know that they ought to.”
“David, I am bored—so bored!”
“I am not joking.”
“Anything for excitement,” she said, with her slow smile. “La petite Anne iséprise. Be quite attentive, Davy. You’ll land her. Now you are angry, but it seems so natural to have you angry at me!”
“Since when have you danced in public?” I said, unwilling to show her my disgust and my rage. “And why now?”
“It isn’t fair to the man, do you think?” she said softly.
I stopped abruptly. What devil had made her say this I don’t know: but she was right. I have danced with hundreds of women, and never been conscious of what I held in my arms,—until that dance with Letty.
“Thank you; I must see to something,” I said, leaving her abruptly, and making a pretext of examining the tree, I went out into the cold air, past the lanterned courtyard, and down the crunching way to the old wooden bridge by the duck pond.
*****
What a hideous situation, and how my whole being revolted at the part I was forced to play! It is at such moments that the old instinct of superstition that lies dormant in each of us comes insistently back. I know that in my old worldly wisdom I have scoffed at Sunday-school morality and have seen as many sinners succeed as fail. Yet at such moments when fate overtakes me I go back to my childhood terror of pulpit thunderings and feel the avenging justice of the Old Testament at my back. It is no use repeating to myself that other men have done much worse than I have done and, the memory dropping away from them, become pillars of respectability. I feel the ominous pursuit of consequences andhear the bitter cry of conscience,—“The wages of sin is death.” Perhaps there are moments so personal in our lives that all morality returns into one individual experience, and right and wrong are momentarily but our superstitious estimate of cause and effect as it suddenly grips us.
Even as, in the bitter nausea of enforced hypocrisy, I stood there in the darkness, a prey to my remorse, I heard a step and knew that my brother was seeking me out.
“Is that you, Ben?”
“I saw you leave.”
Then he had been watching us. The tone of his voice warned me. Again, I should have to lie.
“Couldn’t stand it; had to break away.”
“Why?”
It was black as pitch—thank heaven for that—but I felt as though through the obscurity his hot eyes were watching the tortured agitation on my face.
“It’s not in my mood,” I said rapidly. “Should think you’d understand. My God—with the Governor there—the thought of going back in a few weeks—of all that is coming to us—this dancing and merry-making before—”
“David, are youlyingto me?”
His hand closed over my wrist, and the phrase died on my lips.
“Ben!”
“For God’s sake, tell me the truth! What was there between you and Letty?”
What would I not have given to have bared my conscience to him; but it was not my life alone that was at stake. There was the good name of the family. For a moment, I felt lost in a sickly weakness, and hideous possibilities seemed to strike at me out of the darkness.Then I recovered myself. I began to act. I acted as I had never done before in my life. I caught him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Ben, don’t be a damn fool!”
“Is that your answer?”
“Answer? How can I answer a crazy man? Do you think if there had been, I should ever have come back here? Do you?” In my emotion my hands cut into his shoulders and, driven on by the force of circumstances, I said fiercely, “No, I don’t approve of your marriage. You are not happy. I knew you wouldn’t be. Women like Letty never become real wives. Not that she will do anything she oughtn’t to do—she is too cold-blooded—she loves her little self more than she can ever love anybody else—but the breath of her life is flattery and adoration. God knows, I never wanted to tell you this—but you’ve forced it out of me.”
“You’re telling me nothing new.”
“In heaven’s name, why did you do it, Ben?”
He started back at some thought suggested by this outburst of mine.
“You know something about her, then—over there in Paris?”
I caught myself. Every word, I felt, was dangerous, and anything I might say a trap.
“Ben, do you realize we are discussing your wife?” I said slowly. “Do you realize how impossible this conversation is?”
“Damn it! You’re beating around the bush. You’re my brother, and I have a right to know.”
“Letty is no different from the women of her set, here or over there; no better, no worse. You have chosen to take one of them for your wife. If you ask me has there ever been any public scandal attached to her name, I can say at once, no—absolutely not.”
“You’re telling me the truth?”
“I am.”
“Thank God, at least for that!”
“As for the rest, I repeat, I don’t believe Letty has any heart to give to you or to any one else. That may be cold comfort, but I believe it.”
“If only I believed it!”
“You can. She is a child playing with toys. She must have her toys, to play with and to break. Just at present, because she sees she can torture you, she is amusing herself, just as a child would with a woolly lamb—twisting its legs. Whether she flirts with me or with a dozen men, she’s not thinking of us; it’s you.”
“Don’t—”
“Ben, there’s only one thing to do: grin and bear it, or—”
“Well?”
“Separate and divorce,” I said, and no sooner had I said it than hope flared up in me,—the one hope of ending a ghastly situation.
“It’s not so simple.”
“Do you care—still?”
He stood at my side without an answer.
“Ben, remember one thing.”
“The family—oh, yes—I hope to God I can remember it,” he broke out. “Davy, sometimes I see so red that—that—”
“Stop talking like a fool,” I said angrily. “You’ve chosen to do what you’ve done. You didn’t marry to make a home or with the hope of having children, did you? You married Letty, as half the men we know marry—just in a blind instinct for possession. Now, whatever happens, however you work it out, you’re not going to do anything to disgrace the family. Keep that in mind, Ben.”
“I wish to God I could go back with you and get into it.”
“Why not?”
“If I don’t—I don’t know what’ll happen,” he said, very low. “Davy, it’s all very well for you to stand here and say what you say. You’ve got a cold head. Do you think a man in my position is normal? Do you think that he knows what he is doing half the time? I tell you, Davy, I’m afraid—afraid.”
My mind was made up on that instant.
“Ben, you know I’d do anything in the world for you, don’t you? Will you trust me to make the decision for you?”
“Yes,” he said, after a moment.
“You are coming back with me.” I hesitated, and then added: “For I’m afraid, too.”
So, it is agreed that we go off to France together, though nothing is to be said of it for the present. That is three weeks ahead; much can happen before then. Will he hold to his determination? Will he find the strength to wrench himself free of the slavery of the senses,—for that is all there is to it? I don’t know. I can only wait, fearful of the issue. I can only hope and pray.
*****
Letty, I knew, would have noticed our absence and be watching for our return, and though I didn’t see her when we came into the hall, I was certain that somewhere in the crowd her sharp, unquiet eyes were on us. Late in the evening she came to me as I had expected.
“Eh bien, Davy mio, you are amusing yourself?”
“And you?”
“I am curious,” she said, looking at me intently.
I raised my hand to my throat significantly and the look in my eyes must have frightened her, for she attempted no more persiflage but moved away, rather still andserious for the rest of the evening. Perhaps, at the bottom of her feline soul, there is a touch of genuine fear and—a desire to live.
*****
I thought the evening would never end. Anne reproached me for my gloominess and went off early, hurt, I know, at my seeming indifference. I do not love her, I am sure of that; and yet I cannot bear to see a certain wounded look in her eyes!