Georgiana
If Helen Trumbull had lived in the 19th, instead of in the 20th century, there would have been no turmoil in her life and little romance. But being a child of the Victorian era, rigorously instructed in the puritanism of old Connecticut, and taught to accept without question the old moral axioms of her forefathers, she was confronted, at the very outset of her career, with the conflict between her moral heritage, and the desire to cultivate her active mind. Of course, at the age of ten or twelve, no such conflict existed. What the Bible said about lying, and loving God and your neighbor seemed adequate to cover any of life’s emergencies. Marriage was taken for granted: it was a straight-forward compact with God. There was nothing to be concealed in the marriage relationship. Father and mother were just two people.
These things are all familiar to the modern reader. He has heard about them. Indeed, most readers have themselves sprung from some such atmosphere, and know, to their sorrow, how the 19th century prepared one for life. But Helen, like most of us, thought herself the exception rather than the rule. When she came home, after commencement exercises in her twelfth year, bearing the “best scholarship” cup, and a prize for a theme about the life of Christ, she experienced, for the first time, that feeling of confidence in her own mental prowess, which was to accompany her through life. Henceforth, the pleasure of exercising her mind was among the greatest of all pleasures. Henceforth, she could not be content with accepting everything on faith. And, perhaps, at this point we may place the beginning of a conflict in her nature which she never quite succeeded in solving.
Of course the difficulty grew slowly and imperceptibly. She was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. She took her vows with the utmost solemnity, her whole nature responding passionately to the mystery of her religion. After confirmation there was a deep sense of responsibility toward God, as well as anappeal, derived from the beauty of the Christian conception, which aroused a strain of poetry in her. And these things were only intensified as she grew to understand the prerogatives and the subtleties of womanhood. At school she was respected for her brilliance and conscientiousness, and loved for her dark eyes and hair, her slim figure, and the frank, open-hearted way she had of talking to people. She was not a “leader”, because her intense religious faith made her a trifle “different”. Yet the girls felt that they could always go to her when assistance of any kind was needed. And the boys who fell in love with her eyes were always treated in the kindest, most sympathetic way. They did not know how much it thrilled her to have a crowd of them to “manage”, nor how many hours she had spent scheming for secret and complicated flirtations.
However, “the truth will out”, and it soon became whispered that Helen was a “flirt”—although “just in fun”. Indeed, the game held a dual fascination for her, because it not only satisfied her love of emotional excitement and mystery, but also supplied a field of activity into which her mind could overflow. Neither her teachers nor her parents recognized this. They smiled, in a reminiscent way, and rejected the thought that Helen was learning to play with fire.
When she was sixteen, she played once too often, with a boy named Harry McMichael, who was a freshman football hero at Harvard. His vigorous personality, and the almost savage way he took her hand, after she had tempted him for several days “in fun”, quite swept her away, so that her puritanism seemed all afloat in a flood of emotions. She had never thought of this contingency. Heretofore, she had been mistress, not only of her lovers, but of herself also. Yet this time the dams seemed to break. And she found herself leading Harry on, quite delicately—unsatisfied until he had kissed her. She even made him do it more than once, although, as it appeared to him, reluctantly.
After this episode her conscience roused itself from a New England slumber, and asserted the old principles, even to the verge of extreme asceticism. But there was no longer the old mystery lurking in life; and, coincidently, there was no longer theold fascination in the communion service. She wrote Harry a letter saying that they had done wrong; they must never do it again. But she could not really believe this—what was there wrong about it, anyway? At the time, it was beautiful. And there ought to be nothing left for regret save perhaps the memory of that beauty. It seemed to her extremely narrow to eliminate this kind of relationship from life entirely—to sit back and wait for a stupid old husband. She read a good deal of Shelley, and managed, against all odds, to skim through a book by Havelock Ellis. Reason, she said, ought to dominate life—reason and beauty. So she smoked a cigarette and experienced a wild, imaginative thrill—a thrill which only ended in the old pangs of conscience which seemed to curse her in every new venture.
A more trying experience arrived a year later, when she met John Emerson, from Williams, flirted with him in her usual manner, and was for a second time overcome by her emotions. In this case, however, she had been even more the aggressor than in the former, and poor John, who had himself a puritan ancestry and a dim belief in the ways of God, could do nothing but respond to her clever insinuations. Four or five times they met, during the summer. Each time, it seemed to Helen that a new world had been opened up before her. Each time, the old world receded a step, though tearing with it part of her heart. Yet John announced one night, passionately, that he loved her and wanted to marry her. She was overwhelmed. She had not thought of love—like that. She did not love John. She wept.
Here at last common sense came to perform a function which religion seemed powerless to perform. John held her tightly and stroked her dark hair, but she writhed inwardly. A kind of agony petrified her. This was her work—her damnable thoughtlessness. She had made him love.
Of course it all ended in a tragedy, and she had to send John away, definitely. The old religion was sought as a refuge from strife. It afforded immeasurable comfort. God seemed clothed in His truest light—that of the forgiver—the comforter. Her heart could not worship Him enough, and her lips could not satisfy all that she had to say in prayer. True, she never gaveup her flirtations. They seemed to be an indispensable outlet to her nature. But experience had taught her the boundary lines which lie between men and women. This, and a refreshed enthusiasm for the church guided her life successfully for the ensuing six or seven years.
She was twenty-four when she met Roger Lockwood. It was at a fancy dress ball in Hartford, to which she had come a trifle reluctantly, since the prospect of a repetition of familiarly identical scenes did not stimulate her imagination. However, once having arrived, she found herself enjoying the gayly colored dresses and the jazz music. She quite lost herself in the crowd of faces before her. As in her coming-out year, she allowed her consciousness of self to be swept away, and, urged on by the music, confronted one partner after another with a rapid-fire of conversation and glances from her eyes. She seemed almost to dominate the room at times—especially to-night—although she could have given no very definite reason for it. Perhaps it was merely that her ever active nature was seeking some new and more thrilling experience.
Roger, on the other hand, was not participating to any great extent in the dancing. He was something of a ludicrous figure—calm, passive, tall, and dressed as a young Southern gentleman of the thirties, in brown plaid trousers, high collar, and black bow tie. He wandered listlessly from one corner of the room to another, keeping his eyes upon the figures of the dancers, but rarely cutting in. He seemed to be searching for something intangible—so intangible that he did not know what it was. He could merely contemplate the faces around him, and follow the rhythm of the music in an imaginative way. Roger was a visitor at Hartford. He was up there seeking merely for diversion. He wanted to divert his mind from the constantly recurrant thoughts of his fiancée, who had gone with her family to Europe for the winter.
Stolidly he “looked over” the girls as they went past. He was surprised to find so many of them really beautiful. There was one in particular who was dressed in the costume of the harem,—scarlet with spangles,—and whose fair, almost childish, facesuggested moonlight and a kind of misplaced romance. Her light hair hung prettily over her forehead. She talked with her partners in an intimate way. He was introduced to her. But he could proceed no more than a few steps before some one cut in; and although he repeated this process several times, he found at last more satisfaction in gazing at her from a distance and experiencing a tantalizing feeling in the unattainableness of her beauty. After all, it did not matter much since he was engaged to a girl fully as beautiful. Besides, there were plenty of others to dance with. And presently he became aware of a slim, dark-haired figure, in a gipsy costume, which often swept by him. He looked more closely at the face; and once he caught the mischievous, half-serious glance of her eyes.
“Who is that?” he asked his friend, standing beside him.
“Who?”
“That girl in a gipsy dress.”
“That’s Helen Trumbull. Want to meet her?”
“Yes.”
His friend dragged him by the arm into the midst of the dancers. Roger could not help thinking how ridiculous his brown plaid trousers must appear.
“Mr. Lockwood—Mr. Trumbull.”
They danced. Roger experienced a slight thrill in the way she held him. Her touch was very delicate. But she kept her hand perhaps a trifle too far toward the back of her neck.
“Here I am at last,” he said. “I have been looking for you all evening.”
“How tragic, to be kept in such agony of suspense for three hours!”
She said it so quickly that he was put on his mettle. “Has it only been three hours? It seemed like six!”
She laughed. “May I askwhyyou delayed so long?”
“I was stuck.”
“Oh, too bad. With whom?”
“With Dorothy Hollingshead.” He referred to the girl in the scarlet harem costume.
“Oh, really! How exceptional! I suppose you are still stuck.”
“No,” he replied; “I’m free at last.”
They looked at each other and laughed. But Roger thought, “Hell, this is platitudinous”; and felt that there was more to be found in her personality than these rather strained mental gymnastics. “Let’s sit out,” he suggested on the spur of the moment.
“Already? Why I hardlyknowyou!”
“You might get to know me better.”
“Would it be worth while?” she looked up at him, on the verge of laughter. He nodded solemnly. And presently she stopped dancing and led him by the arm out of the room.
“This,” she said, as she sat down in a large gilt-edged arm-chair, “is the mostunconventional thing I have ever done.”
“Really? You must be something of a model of excellence.”
“Oh, do you think I could be? I should like to be.”
He wondered how seriously to take this remark.
“Oh,” said she, “you’re a skeptic. You don’t believe any woman is a model of excellence.”
“I have never found one.”
She turned away prettily.
“Well,” said Roger, “it isn’t a question of models; it’s a question of more or less.”
“And where would you put me—more or less?”
He hesitated, seeking for a clever twist to give the words.
“Oh there! You see! I have made a wrong impression.”
“I was going to saymore. But sometimes my first impressions are wrong.”
“And I suppose you wouldliketo have them wrong?”
How cleverly she had touched upon a forbidden subject!
“Yes,” he said, “I would.”
They both laughed then, for it seemed that they had already attained a kind of intimacy. He was aware that her charms emanated not only from the way she spoke these, but also from the whole expression of her face and her body, which was tantalizing—a vague innuendo. He compared her, not unfavorably, to Georgiana, his absent fiancée. But then he cursed himself for a fool. Georgiana and he had grown up together.
They returned to the dance, chatting easily, arm in arm. But when supper came, which was an informal affair, he found himselfleading her into a secluded corner of the room, where they settled themselves into their chairs, and sipped coffee luxuriously.
“I think you’re a fast worker,” she said, right in the middle of a silence.
He smiled. “I was about to say the same thing of you.”
“Oh, but it wouldn’t be true—of a girl.”
“No?”
“No.”
The finality of her voice would have been convincing, had it not been for the expression of her mouth. But it was easy, from this point, to branch off into a more serious discussion about the relative functions of girls and boys. In order to ascertain her reaction, he ventured the theory that a woman was always justified in her flirtations; that the beauty of the moment, in love, was all that really counted; and that an engagement was really not binding if either party should lose interest. She disagreed with this, and said:
“I think an engagement is sacred. Flirting—well, that’s the food of life, you know. But it’s one of my principles never—”
She paused, fearing that she was becoming a trifle too frank with this comparative stranger.
“Well, go on. Never—”
“No, I don’t know you well enough to tell you.”
He laughed. “Well, it’s quite obvious what you were going to say.”
She bit her lip and colored, with a flush of anger.
“I suppose you think me a fool,” she said.
“I don’t. I admire you. I think an engagementissacred—of course. But what I meant was that often men are carried away—in a moment—by a look or a gesture—by anything. And I can’t exactly blame them for it. I can’t see how a man is expected to live up to his ideal, in a case like that.”
“No.” She seemed to ponder the question carefully. “But don’t you see, it’s the woman’s fault—when men are carried away?”
They looked at each other, then, each recognizing the potentialities of their own situation. The look was intense. It sent a flush across Helen’s cheek.
“Perhaps you are engaged. How little I know about you! Are you?”
He hesitated. “No,” he said at length. What did it matter?—this one evening!
“Ah then,” she replied, “the sky’s the limit.”
“No; the stars!”
They both laughed and proceeded with their coffee. Somehow the conversation turned upon religion. They grew more and more serious. He respected her beliefs, although he did not hold them himself.
“There was only once in my life,” she said, alluding vaguely to the past, “when I didn’t believe. But I was growing up at the time. I was fascinated by Byron’s character and used to picture him as an ideal lover. Then I read some of Mathew Arnold. Have you ever read him.”
“Yes—long ago—at college.”
She smiled. “Long ago?”
“Well, four or five years ago—I don’t remember exactly.”
“Oh, youmustread him again. He will give you a new point of view.”
“Did he give you that—that theory about engagements?”
“No.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Oh—why—from myself, I guess. It’s common sense, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Isn’t that the way morals are made—from common sense? Don’t your principles, as you call them, come mostly from your own common sense, rather than from your religion?”
She hesitated. “Well, put it this way: I think out my principles, and religion gives me the strength to live up to them. There now—that’s almost like Mathew Arnold.”
There was quite a long silence.
“My, but we’ve gotten serious,” she said at last, and looked at him, as though to see if he were playing with her. But it was evident that he was not.
Presently they returned again to the dance.
Roger decided to prolong his visit to Hartford, and in the course of the next few days he saw her several times. She did not live very far out of town. For her part, Helen found herself dangerously fascinated by him. Whenever she was with him, she was led to suggest things “in fun”—things which would actually be quite contrary to her puritanical principles. And he always seemed to respond, up to the very limit, although he had not so much as tried to take her hand. She reflected that she had never flirted quite so violently with any man, without having him spoil the excitement by an attempt to leave the realms of the intellectual, and burst into the physical. Roger almost satisfied her highest ideal.
She asked Mary Waterworth about him one night, and Mary told her that he was engaged. Mary even showed her a picture of Georgiana, which Helen gazed at for a long time. Georgiana had light hair and large eyes, which were probably brown, and almost classic features. She was very lovely, Helen thought. The expression of her face seemed to say, “I understand Roger. I belong to Roger. There is more to bindustogether than a night’s flirtation. There is the whole past.” Helen was jealous in spite of herself. The picture, which was mounted in a large silver frame, and which gazed out at the world innocently enough, fascinated her. She could with difficulty remove her eyes from it.
“What are you looking at?” asked Mary.
“Nothing—I—I thought the face seemed familiar.”
Why,whyhad Roger lied to her? What could be his motive in telling her that he was not engaged? It seemed altogether despicable of him—after her direct question.
The awful thought came to her that he had been playing with her. She had always feared this—that some man would see through her superficialities, andplaywith her. She drew a mental picture of Roger’s calm, ironical smile, and his conceit in his own success. Oh!
That night they were to drive out to the country, to a barn dance. Roger arrived in his roadster at the appointed hour. Helen stepped into the car frigidly, not deigning to take his extended hand. She was going to punish him—punish him—for leading her on as he had. But no sooner had the car started than he made her laugh at some foolish joke; and half of the frost was thawed. Then, too, he was sitting very close to her. And he had that damnably attractive look in his eyes. She decided to defer the punishment—for a number of “reasons”. It would spoil the whole evening—their last evening, since John was bound for New York the next day. There would be so much fun for both of them—to go ahead—to-night—just as they had been going. Finally—and this decided her—by holding her knowledge of his engagement secretly in the back of her mind, she would be able to inflict a subtler and much more severe punishment upon him when he was not expecting it. She would be in the position of an opportunist, with hidden weapons ready for the emergencies. So she sat back comfortably in the seat beside him, and talked in the most fascinatingly intimate way that she knew.
They stopped at the top of a long hill, and he swung the car to the side of the road, so that they could see far out across the moonlit Connecticut valley.
“We’re out of gas,” he said with a smile, “and besides, I want to look at the view.”
Helen rather liked the way he said it, since the engine was still turning over healthily. Still, she hesitated. As he reached for the switches and turned out the lights, she knew, deep in her nature, that she could not controlthissituation. They had better drive on. But then, there was the thrill of excitement, of the new experience. Again she found “reasons”. Why, it would be all right. John was in love with Georgiana. There was no danger. He was a sane, honest man. He desired, like herself, merely the thrill of the moment. Men who are engaged are safe. Yet even as this thought flashed into her mind, she felt his hand upon hers, and his arm around her shoulders. For a moment the picture of Georgiana flashed before her eyes. She saw, again, Georgiana’s beautiful hair and her supreme expression. Then itwas that she gave herself up to Roger entirely, for the vision of the other girl made him seem even more intensely romantic.
Her principles! Where were they now? After Roger had started up the car again, the whole past seemed to cry out to her that she had been unworthy of herself.
“Roger,” she said, holding his arm, “we ought not to have done that?”
“Why not?”
“Because—you—I know you are engaged.”
He turned upon her, a little fiercely. “Howdid you know that?”
“Some one told me.”
“Well, what if I am?” he said. “I suppose you think me insincere—and a beast.”
“No, I was thinking of myself. I knew you were engaged. I ought not to have allowed you to go ahead.”
“Hell,” he said, “it isn’t your fault. It’s Georgie’s fault. I didn’t want her to go abroad. I told her that I couldn’t stand it. But she laughed, not being able to understand a man’s point of view. She laughed and said that if I really loved her, it would be easy. But it isn’t easy, and I do love her.”
“Have you loved her—long?”
“All my life. We were brought up together. I can’t remember any girls at all, without having the impression of Georgie mixed up with them somehow.”
“And you have done—this—before?”
“Occasionally. You see, Georgie is a peculiar character. She is too exacting. She sails serenely on—like an angel—imagining that everyone else is an angel also. Sometimes, when she deserts me for a long time, I don’t live up to scratch. I always complain to her, and tell her about it. But she laughs, and calls me silly.”
“How long have you been engaged?”
“Actually, only about six months.”
“Oh.” The problem fascinated Helen. And it was, for her, an important problem, since she wished to ascertain how much evil she had done. She began to feel extremely unhappy, notonly because she had broken her principles, but mainly because she had lost her supremacy as mistress of the situation. Artistically, she had failed. And she writhed at the thought of how the punishment which she had intended to inflict upon Roger had turned itself back upon her.
On the other hand, she told herself inwardly that neither was Roger really in love with Georgiana, nor Georgiana with Roger. She reiterated this several times. It gave her comfort. And she justified her presumption on the grounds that Roger was too easily led astray, and Georgiana apparently too casual, for any very lasting relationship to exist between them.
Toward the close of that evening she began to feel more the mistress of the situation again.
Of course, after Roger had gone back to New York, she experienced some qualms. Indeed, there were times when it made her utterly miserable, to think what she had done, and when Georgiana’s picture would come before her eyes again to arouse a poignant feeling of remorse. Her flirtations had not only been unfair to Roger: they would be considered despicable by Georgiana. And somehow she loved and admired Georgiana. At such times, religion seemed the only outlet to her emotions, and the altar the only pedestal upon which she could place her heart. Thus she was comforted.
Nevertheless, that winter proved to be a period of emotional ups and downs. Roger visited Hartford more and more frequently. Each time he came the same scenes were enacted, alone, somewhere, in the little roadster, on the highway. It was simply inevitable. To begin with, he had kissed her once; and ever after that his kisses seemed not sinful, but natural. She found, also, that he filled a definite place in her life. She needed him. And this need was only the more strengthened by the gradual association of him with her religious emotions. Starting from the feelings of remorse, her prayers gradually changed from fervent requests for strength to keep Roger away, to pleas, as fervent, that he come back again soon. Georgiana was thrust into the background. Although she did not admit it, Helen was in love. In a sense it was only her just share of the spoils that she havethese short hours with Roger, while Georgiana was gallivanting about Europe.
But such a state of affairs couldn’t last long. Helen had completely rationalized her principles, and Roger had completely ignored his duties toward Georgiana. He woke up to this fact one day. He was at first disturbed, but later cleared up the matter a little, with a grin, by saying that for a lover there were really noduties. The mere fact that it seemed to be adutyfor him to leave Helen alone, proved a great deal—proved, in fact, that he was no longer in love with Georgiana. What a stupid ass he had been, all this time. He was in love with the past, but not with Georgiana. He had allowed a childish emotion to dominate his maturity. Georgiana was a lovely dream; but she could never be his wife. Ah! Who else—who else—but Helen? His mind fluctuated. It hovered indecisively for several weeks. He saw Helen again. They parted, almost tearfully. And then the only course seemed to be to write Georgiana, and break the engagement.
Here was a small tragedy. But he accomplished the task. And the tragic feelings aroused were transferred over to Helen’s personality, making his love for her all the more compelling.
Then he told her, one night, what he had done.
For her, it was very much like a pitcher of cold water poured on one who is half asleep. With a gasp she was roused from her rationalized dreams. The most terrible aspect of it was that the deed was already done. It was irretrievable. She had instigated it. She had allowed the whole affair to drift to this conclusion. She could articulate nothing, but held closely to Roger, sobbing—torn by the conflicting passions within her. Never before had she actually seen God face to face. But now He came to her, as a terrible, revengeful angel, out from the past; while Roger, who sat there, seemed to represent the other extreme of her being—her mortal love. Call it casual love—you Christian hypocrites; call it anything you will; it was nevertheless present, in the person of this man, and its power over her was irresistible. It seemed to her that her nature would break in two. Especially after she had sent Roger away, with her promise to give him an answer on the morrow—especially then, alone in her room, she experienceda terrible feeling of being cut in half. The God of her ancestors was simply merciless. “Why—why? What have I done?” she cried. The answer was that she had flirted; she had forgotten her principles—one moment—one fleeting moment; she had rationalized; she had debased her own self-respect. Yet she was in love, now, and he was in love with her. There was only one course to be taken.
Perhaps two lovers never embraced more passionately than these two when Roger learned the next day what her decision had been. He understood, almost as well as she, the tremendous storm within her. He understood that he alone could create a haven where the storm might not enter, and where this delicate, fitful ship could lie happily at anchor.
They were married quite peacefully in an old New England church, and she went with him to live in New York.
Winter passed. Spring came. Georgiana returned. It is only after some such calm as this that one can look back and contemplate the true causes of a storm. Helen found, after she had lived intimately with Roger for a short time, that there were a great many things yet to be learned about each other’s characters. Not only this. There were a great many things to be forgiven in each other’s characters—more things, perhaps, than the average man and wife can forgive. In the first place, she was vivacious; he was stolid. She had a quick mind, essentially French; his mind was slow and Anglo-Saxon. She was loath to recognize these things; she tried to rationalize them. But they were there continually to remind her that she had a very difficult situation to manage, if she were to maintain her supremacy. Of course she loved Roger. But it was not the same as in the days when she had flirted with him.
Georgiana had come back—that was the difficulty. One day she heard Roger return from work, and since he did not go directly to greet her as usual, she started toward the parlor to greet him. Yet at the door she paused, for she saw him in front of the window, bending over something. Helen slipped behind the curtain and peered through the crack. He held a picture in his hand;and as he went over to the light to look at it more intensely, she saw who it was.
“God, but she was a beautiful girl!” said her husband, as he gazed for a long time into those deep eyes.
Presently he turned, went over to a drawer in the bottom of the book-case, and started to put the picture away. Helen retired quickly from the curtain. What troubled her most of all was Roger’s queer psychology, which concealed these things. Then, too, there was the distasteful, though emotional, necessity of obtaining the picture, and destroying it, without discovery.
RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.