CHAPTER IX
Thatevening Molly remarked to her friend abruptly, “Walter thinks he wishes to marry me.”
“Well?” Mrs. Wilbur asked with quick curiosity.
“I’ll tell you all about it. He feels badly now, but, if it doesn’t get out he will be all right in a few weeks. He asked me to do it—marry him—at least for your sake. But I told him I couldn’t do it, even for you.”
“He means so very well, Molly!” Mrs. Wilbur exclaimed with some compassion.
“Yes, too well by me! He’s been trying not to do this thing ever since I have known you. He almost slipped twice, no, three times. This afternoon he didn’t want to do it one bit, and even at the end he made me feel that it was a condescension on his part.”
“Oh, Molly!”
“He began by thanking me profusely for all I had done for you. Told me the family were very appreciative of my efforts to save you from yourself, and to preserve the decencies of social life.”
Mrs. Wilbur winced.
“He said a great crisis was coming in your life now, and we two, Mr. Anthon and I, could help you so much in case—”
“The little hypocrite! Was that all?”
“Yes, about you then. I think the next event was that he tried to kiss me before he had really said anything—well, definite. He first took my hand, then insinuated his arm about my waist—we were in a dark corner under a wall—”
“Molly!”
“Well, we know himsowell! and I wanted to see what it is like to have love made in that way. I felt like,—as if I were a maid, a servant. It was quite horrid! It might have been Pina. When he reached a certain point, just beyond the proper pressure for a waltz—I, I laughed.”
She laughed again at the memory.
“Then I lectured him soundly. I began ’way back with the beginning,—his running around after people, his toadying, his literary ambitions, his self-importance. I talked to him about his treatment of you in Paris; he merely wanted to get rid of you decently. After that we discussed love. I used some of Erard’s psychology. He was after sensations merely, I told him—wanted to know how it would feel to kiss me. He would be awfully lugubrious afterwards, if I had snapped him up, and he had come to his senses to-morrow to find himself engaged to a poor girl twenty-five years old with no social pulls. I described to him how such a man ‘falls in love,’ and how he makes a grumbling, fault-finding husband. Oh! I taught him a lot!”
She laughed again. Mrs. Wilbur wished to laugh also, but restrained herself.
“I ended by giving him some good advice about himself.In the first place he must get some kind of principles, just for convenience. Now he doesn’t care about anything but the looks of things. And do you know what he said—he was very angry by this time! ‘Why, Miss Parker, you have a singular misconception of me. How could I have all the friends who surround me and how could I make so many influential connections in London, if I were the sort of man you describe?’ Actually, he said that. Your brother, Adela, is quite hopeless.”
“Was that all?”
“Yes, he was very, very angry, so mad he forgot to be hurt. It was the kindest way to send him off. He will go back to London to-morrow, pretty well cured of an infatuation, which, he assured me, had extended over five years.”
Mrs. Wilbur laughed this time without scruple. But after a time she said earnestly, “You might have done so much for him, Molly!”
Molly looked at her, with a trace of contempt in her smiling mouth. “Do you think that’s the right place for missionary endeavour, Adela?” An instant later she nestled up to her friend. “Forgive me, dear. I am horrid and heartless.”
The two shed a few tears. “We women never escape our affections,” Mrs. Wilbur remarked ruefully, thinking of the afternoon. “Men get along so much more easily.”
“I don’t want to escape!” Molly replied promptly, and then blushed.
Walter Anthon departed the next morning at an early hour, leaving behind him, in a fluent, spiteful little note,his last words to his sister. He now made the final washing of his hands in her case, and having pointed out the path of true wisdom and decency, he left her to profit by the lesson. Mrs. Wilbur tossed Molly the note. “See what a rupture you have made, Molly, between brother and sister!”
“The little beast! He wants you to marry Erard! I didn’t think he was as bad as that, or I should have added a fifthly to my sermon.”
“Perhaps he is right,” Mrs. Wilbur asserted drearily.
She wondered where Erard was these days. He had not written her from Rome, thus attempting to discipline her for her revolt by neglect. She did not know that he had returned to Florence, that he was quietly biding his time, nor that Walter Anthon had seen him before he had come to her on his last diplomatic errand. Indeed, that errand had been but a part of Walter’s scheme, the plan of which had already been worked out in the rooms on the Piazza San Spirito. The two men had come to an understanding, during an hour of vague fencing: young Anthon was to strike first, and then after a decent interval Erard was to conclude the matter.
In the meantime letters from the outside world penetrated Mrs. Wilbur’s silence, like little voices talking over her divorce. Strangely, the most moving one was from Mrs. Anthon. “That loud Mrs. Stevans has the house your father’s money helped to build. They are to be married in London, the papers say, and when they get back in the fall they expect to do the house all over and put in all the pictures and rubbish she’s collected.Her photograph was in theSunday Thundererlast week—as big and coarse looking as ever.... I feel old now, Ada, and it seems as though, after all I have done for my children, I weren’t wanted in the world. Your brother John’s wife doesn’t like me, and now you are gone, there’s no place to go to except a hotel, and that doesn’t seem quite respectable. But it won’t be for long....”
As she read this letter, something like remorse came over Mrs. Wilbur for her harsh and unsympathetic treatment of her mother. Since the talk in the Boboli gardens with Jennings several illuminating ideas had altered her conception of life. It could not be denied that this mother was silly and vulgar. But to be foolish, to be common, was not the most hideous crime for pitiable human beings to commit, she had begun to realize. And what had she gained by her struggle for escape? She was drifting now, uncertainly. Drifting, her life must be, if she continued her effort; drifting on into adeclassé milieu, where she would amuse herself with the gossip and fritter of art, where her sole object would be to enjoy and pass away the years. She had learned well what that kind of European life was like.
Thus a week, two weeks passed. Jennings was to leave for America in another fortnight. Erard was yet to be heard from, and she was sure that the day was not far off when he would show his hand. At times the idea of the tie that bound her to him exhaled a strange kind of corrupt fascination. How he had dominated her! What was there inside of him? She felt a recklesscuriosity to explore the dark, private places of his soul, to touch his clammy self more closely, and to know the worst.
At last Erard appeared late one evening. Molly and Jennings had gone out in search of a cool breeze. As Mrs. Wilbur lay in the moonlight on the terrace, she heard a soft step on the road below the wall. It crept on around the corner, and the sound disappeared. She knew it was Erard. Soon she heard his quiet, positive, yet catlike tread on the terrace. She could feel his movement behind her; he was gaining, coming closer at last, and she lay passive, wondering what the outcome would be.
“You are quite alone?” Erard greeted her questioningly.
“Yes,” she murmured, without betraying either interest or surprise in his presence. She took it for granted that he had just returned from Rome.
“Such a heavenly night!” Erard dropped his glasses and leaned against the parapet as if he had plenty of time for contemplation. He had accepted the idea of marriage with its possible inconveniences, yet he did not propose to be untactful, to place himself in the open by asking her to become Mrs. Erard. He would first bid her love him, as though he knew of no possible union for them. That was a finer stroke, and if Anthon had had sense enough not to chatter about their talk, all would go as he planned.
She was a fit possession to have, he reflected, as he watched her white face. She was striving, unsatisfied,keen-minded, and beautiful, with a reserve of feminine power, which even his insinuating wits couldn’t penetrate. She was John Anthon’s daughter, and had a hundred and fifty thousand from him, and a fool of a brother. She was Sebastian Anthon’s niece, and had two hundred thousand from him. Sebastian Anthon was the kind old fool who had supplied him with money to live on, as you’d give a boy pocket money; and then had turned him off to starve because he didn’t make enough of a sensation. She had been John Wilbur’s wife, and had deserted that pompousbourgeoisat his suggestion because the successful Wilbur was too much of a stupid. He, Simeon Erard, held her in his hand as his ripe spoil.
“It is one great peace here,” he resumed. “I feel content, too. So much that I have striven for all these years since you first began your help to me has come about. I have been asked recently to contribute a series of articles to the newInternational Review. There is talk, I hear, of making me one of the sub-editors. That would necessitate our living in Paris part of each winter. The publishers have begun to print our book. I have the proofs of the first volume with me. We can run them over together this summer.”
He paused, surprised that she seemed so languid. “Doesn’t that interest you any more?” he asked suspiciously.
“Of course.” Mrs. Wilbur roused herself. “I am glad to know that your efforts are meeting with their reward. You are getting some of the prizes in your game.” Asudden whim made her add meaningly, “Now you can afford to look outside; you can do something for your father. Peter, you know, is gone. He died without getting the prizes.”
She could hear the gravel crunch under his feet as he turned swiftly from his idle stand by the parapet, but he answered tranquilly.
“What have they to do with the matter? Have I ever mentioned them to you? I will take care of them—him, in my own good time. You do not understand, Adela.”
“Oh, no! you never mentioned them to me. It occurred to me that in this new life of success, you might have time and means—to take Peter’s place.”
He did not reply. Her remarks seemed to make little impression on him. Instead, he drew near her, deliberately, watching her steadfastly.
“What I wish is that this new life shall bring meyou.” He pronounced the words with slow emphasis. She remained numb, vaguely repeating his words to herself. He continued slowly: “We are made for each other.” Wilbur had saidthat. “You have the strong mind, and you know what living means.” Too well, alas! and he had taught her many a lesson. “We have lived this year as one person. You know my thoughts; I know yours.”
He paused after every phrase. Then as he had planned, he attempted passion. It was the right place for passion, and this silent, white woman with her sombre face, who for once refused to meet him, moved him to a sort of self-conscious passion. He trembledslightly, and coming a step nearer, he bent over her chair and looked into her face intently.
“You are mine, you are mine, my lady Adela!” He touched her arms deftly, attempting to arouse her. “Adela! We have lived for one another. My great woman!” He seemed to her nearer, yet nothing moved her. She even looked at him calmly. His passion was clammy. She must have more of it, however; it was like a triumph, a revenge over herself, to have him thus. “We shall make our world one long splendid day—”
His arms were about her now, and she felt the pressure of him person to person, and the kiss from his lips. Then she awoke; her breath came wildly. Suddenly she knew that he was aware that she was free to be his wife. Her brother had been in Rome. This was all prepared. It was the final play in the game to reduce herfirst, and make terms,histerms, later.
“No! no!” She pushed him back coldly.
“You are mine—you have said it with your eyes, once, twice, and now I take my own.”
“Yes! I have been yours in despair, in reckless thought, but—but that has passed. It is impossible!”
He looked at her nonplussed. She felt compelled to explain. “You have broken me in, made yourself my master. You made me think content with the little commonplace of life was silly. You scoffed at all the pitiful efforts of the others. And I obeyed you—I broke their laws, thinking to find peace in beauty and enjoyment—”
“Well? What do you want?”
“Want!” she repeated contemptuously. “Everything! Yon lowered me step by step, making me follow you, work for you, testing me; and if you had been enough of a man to have had pity, to have loved,then.... But, what is the use of words—I don’t love you,—understand. I feared you, but I don’t love you. And I see you now quite clearly without glamour. I—I hate the kind of man you have made yourself. Ihateyou,” she repeated deliberately as he stepped back.
“No, I am wrong, I despise you, as I would—I can go on working for you, admiring your clever wits, and helping you perhaps,—but I despise you so heartily that you will never feel it—” she stopped exhausted.
“Did I advise you to follow this way of life?” Erard asked, attempting to regain his usual imperturbability.
“Oh, no! You would do nothing so rash.”
“Have I given you nothing?”
“Why, yes, yourself. And, I suppose, I should be content with that. You have got out of life what you wanted, including your poor triumph over me. But if you ever come to have the highest fame you dream of, that will make no difference to me. You have trodden out every human feeling in your body. You have succeeded, but your success is rotten, rotten.”
Her voice sounded harshly in the soft air. A gentle breeze stirred the trees overhead and shook out the perfumes of the flowers. She struggled again with her incoherence.
“It has taken me a good while to understand. It has taken a thousand little things to teach me about you.But I have learned! Now let me tell you that your analysis is not always right. It would have been betternotto wait—until the legal side had been straightened out, and we could marry and my fortune could be—attached. Perhaps, perhaps,—” She rose and followed him to the parapet. “Once perhaps you could have had me, to suck out my life and throw me away. Perhaps I would have followed you,—slave I already was,—your mistress and your adorer. But you—waited—until it was quite regular. And, meanwhile, you have made me see!”
“I don’t follow your ravings closely, but I gather that if I had let you—”
“Take care! Mind your manners!” she exclaimed more calmly, with a touch of her old haughtiness. “You can’t understand, and I shall not try to explain. It is a question of casuistry in a woman’s heart that isn’t in your field.”
“And can you explain where I have offended you?”
“Oh! I am of no importance, and it would take me a long time to make you see. But I will tell you a few things. You have pushed your way, you have taken what you want from the world, lived off it! You have abandoned your own people, you have sneered at your own land. And, what is worse than all, you have failed—to add one beautiful thing to this sore old world! You cannot, you cannot! I did not know why—now I do. There is no blood in your body, Mr. Simeon Erard,—no human, sinning, rich blood. Ah! you know too much, and your knowledge is—worthless.”
Erard made no attempt to stem this impetuous passion. Women were powder mines, or brutes, if they had any spirit in them. This one had served him a panther’s trick.
“You have taught me to climb the same desolate hill where you have perched yourself. I have my freedom—I am alone now—but it would be better for me to be dead,” she concluded passionately.
“Do you regret that your husband has made it quite impossible for you to play the prodigal wife?”
Mrs. Wilbur gave him the look that is a blow.
“You are so low that we need not discuss my divorce. Indeed, we need not alter our way of life, so long as it interests me. When you cease to amuse my wits, I shall give you notice. Until then I shall be glad to continue my assistance. And I think it will be easier for both of us, now that we understand each other.”
“It might be better for your reputation, since you are divorced, to—”
“Thank you! You are tender of my reputation rather late. Remember that you have taught me to live above such philistine considerations. And I have explained sufficiently why I do not care to be Mrs. Simeon Erard.”
“We can hardly continue our former relationship under the circumstances.”
Mrs. Wilbur laughed lightly. “Don’t be so foolish as to try the heroic. Be the very wise man you have made me believe you are, and continue as if nothing had happened but a temporary aberration from reason on your part. Or, rather, a miscalculation that we can forgetsoon. And I may take myself away from your fold some day.”
Erard folded his arms and looked at her sneeringly.
“You have never shown me quite so much of this theatrical side.”
“No? We women have it about us somewhere, and certain topics are likely to call it out. There is convention—you and I agreethatis senseless and boring. There is intelligence—you and I value that quite highly enough. And there is life and honour and love: on such matters you are not fitted to talk, and I grow theatrical. If you will ring that bell in the arbour, Pina will bring you some wine and cigarettes. There are the voices of Mr. Jennings and Molly. We have had just time enough for our little understanding, Mr. Simeon Erard.”
She nodded to him pleasantly, and walked into the villa with a light step.