CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The next morning Roger went before Anne awoke. In the afternoon a messenger brought a note asking to have his things sent to the office. At dusk the express came and Anne watched Roger's trunk down the stairs and the truck clang away over the grass-grown cobbles. When the last sound had died she went in, fed Rogie and let him kick for a while naked before the fire. When he crumpled in sleep upon the rug, Anne carried him to bed, to the crib back now beside the wide bed, hers alone. A little later she was asleep beside him.
The hours heaped themselves to days, the days dropped under their weight to nights. Each day was the same as another. Anne neither cried, regretted, nor rebelled. She did not even think. She seemed to be moving in a clear, white light that illuminated every cranny of the past, so that the shadows which had been her thoughts and reactions to Roger and the world, were now obliterated in this dazzling lucidity, a light so vivid and intense that nothing but itself existed, a wordless understanding and acceptance. Anne could not have said what it was she so clearly understood, but she moved in a petrifaction of calm. Her exhausted nerves were dead.
On the tenth day, Anne received a short note enclosing two-thirds of Roger's salary, with the receipt for the rent and the electric bill and asking her to make some arrangement for his seeing Rogie. On the third reading, the meaning penetrated and Anne faced the future.
The clear white light was gone. It was unclear and confused, filled with sudden, new needs and readjustments. Roger could not go on sending her so much of his salary. Nor did she wish to be dependent on him. If she gave nothing, she would take nothing for herself.
She would go back to work. She would have to sell her brain and obedience again to the highest bidder, give of her best, suit her hours to the order of another, give to the limit of her power, always conscious of others waiting to snatch this privilege from her. Outwardly her life would be the life before she met Roger. Inwardly it could never be that again. Rogie made it impossible. Neither girl nor wife, Anne faced the years. Only motherhood was left.
Hour after hour, Anne sat, tense and still, staring out across the garden, moving only to the need of Rogie. Unsuspected threads crossed and tangled her clearest purposes. She would go back again into the prison cell of some law office. She would begin again the deadening round that had once so disturbed Roger. Now it would not disturb him. From depths within, anger rose at the world, at life, at Roger. Into the pit of his belief he could throw all his own energy and hope, even the first loneliness,—if he felt any,—for past material comfort and little Rogie. She had no such pit. She would walk through the days, physically weary, empty of purpose except for Rogie. And he was so little, his demands for food and sleep and cleanliness, any kind woman could meet.
Anne sat until dawn, the darkness within as dense as the night without. Not until the first faint streaks of silver broke in the east did Anne see the thread of a path before her. She could not move on blindly into the future—a future like Hilda's Niche. To the limit of her power, she would straighten it, begin her new life with no thread running to the past. She would get a legal divorce, stipulate a small amount for Rogie's maintenance and fixed times and ways for Roger to see him.
Late that morning Anne went to a lawyer. As she moved across the outer office to the door marked private it gave her an extraordinary feeling of being two people, in two different spots at the same time—Anne Mitchell, private secretary, going to take dictation, and Anne Barton, wife of Roger Barton, mother of Roger Mitchell Barton, going to seek a divorce.
The lawyer Anne had selected because she had once written him a letter in a case John Lowell was handling, was an elderly man with sagging cheeks, passion-weary eyes, and a fastidious nicety of dress. Within the casque of his manner and clothes, the soul of man was rotted. His surprise at Anne's blond youth flashed for a second in his eyes, and then with lowered head, he listened with professional interest while she stated her wish briefly. When she had finished he looked up.
"Ah—incompatible, you say, quite incompatible. A great pity. Are you sure you've given the matter every possible consideration, Mrs. Barton?"
"Every possible consideration," Anne said sharply.
"Incompatible," he repeated, and his eyes stripped from the word every meaning but the connotation of physical repulsion. Anne's hands clenched and she wanted to run. But where? The world would give this same interpretation; under all the large vague terms with which people might cover them, this would be their thought. She turned her eyes quickly from the eyes moving with pretense of deep consideration over her flaming face and neck and body.
"Suppose you don't do anything definite for a time, Mrs. Barton. Nearly all young couples—ah—after the first two or three years—reach this point. It seems as if the first passion almost invariably runs its course in that time then—after a period of physical indifference—aversion often—if you have intellectual interests——"
Anne rose. "If you do not wish to take the case, please say so. I am not doing this hastily. I have thought it over very carefully."
"Ah—then there is perhaps nothing else to do," he said with a sudden change of tone. He was like a well-trained dog, refusing a bone until his master's permission allows him to snatch it. "You wish to institute proceedings directly, I suppose?"
"Yes. I would like you to act right away."
"Certainly. After all, Mrs. Barton, that is the brave thing to do—think, decide and act." His smile admitted Anne to the regions of masculine logic, uncluttered by the usual feminine sentimentality.
Ten minutes later, Anne was down again on the street. Dazed as if she had emerged into a strange world, she walked unseeing in the hurrying stream. She had done the one clear thing to do and yet she could not shake off the feeling that this act, instead of ending a situation, had created it. It had not existed until she had risen and spoken sharply to that vile old man. Until then she had been alone. Now she had admitted strangers. Before, her inner life had been her own; now, every one who heard of the Barton divorce would share it. They would surmise, and discuss, and nibble at her privacy.
Anne walked slowly along in the hot noon sunshine, up the hill to the cottage. This was changed, too. It was like a house, clean and straightened after a funeral, the flowers gone, the extra chairs removed. This was divorce of which one spoke so carelessly, this great emptiness to be filled with unglimpsed future. No one to consider now but herself. Every experience to be her own, unshared, unadjusted to another. It was like the clearness of a cold north wind that obliterates all softness, sharpens every outline. Clear, cold, stark, the future lay before her.
The next Thursday afternoon, as usual, a little before three, Anne let herself into the flat. At this hour, James was usually awake and Hilda busy warming the broth or malted milk he always took in the afternoon. But to-day, as Anne went up the stairs, she felt a thick silence envelop her, and before she had reached the top, she knew that they knew. For a moment she thought of slipping away. Then she went quietly on. They would have had to know soon. It did not matter.
In the kitchen, James Mitchell sat in his chair, the daily paper spread open on the reading rack. Hilda stood beside him. They might have been victims of Pompeii, stricken at their tasks. As Anne came quietly into the room and stood inside the door, Hilda turned frightened eyes upon her.
"What is it," she whispered piteously, "what is it, Annie? It isn't true?"
She pointed to the paper and Anne knew how they knew. The lawyer had indeed lost no time. Anne moved to the chair and took the paper.
"Anne vs. Roger Barton, incompatibility."
She laid the paper back on the rack. "Yes, it's true. Roger and I have separated."
The old man took the paper and tried to tear it, but it only rustled in his futile striving. He pulled at it and shook his head and then, with a supreme effort, tore it and rising a few inches in his chair, waved the torn pieces uncertainly.
"I—won't—have—it—do you—hear—you sha'n't—do—this." His thick muttering choked him and Hilda began to cry.
"Don't, papa, don't. It isn't good for you. Annie will explain."
The old man cried with her, at first helplessly like a child, then more violently. Anne took the torn paper from him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Be quiet, papa."
He shook her hold from him and again tried to speak. The contortion was terrible. Hilda put her arms about him, the effort strangled in a sob and Hilda held him close.
"There, there," she murmured, "don't cry, papa."
As she held him the sobs lessened. Anne stood looking at them, this extraordinary sight of her mother comforting her father, both of them locked together beyond her, opposing her; with every scrap of their strength clutching their own peace.
"Please," she began wearily, "stop this fuss. If you want to talk, I'll talk, but there's nothing to say. Roger and I don't agree. That's all. We'll both be freer to be ourselves, apart. That's all, really."
"Rub—bish," Hilda sputtered between her lessening sobs, but a little cheered at the familiar garb of a situation in words. Silence terrified Hilda. "Nonsense, Anne. Freer to be yourselves! Nobody expects to be free when they're married."
"Nobody—listens—to—me——" James began muttering again. "I—told—you—socialist—anarchist—nobody—in my own—house—I——"
"Don't, papa, don't get all stirred up again," Hilda patted his head soothingly. "You're getting along so nice and the doctor said——"
"To—hell—doctor," he spluttered, stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and said in a quick, almost unintelligible rush, "I—won't—have it—disgrace—everybody—in—office—know——" his breath exhausted, he leaned back panting, and glared at Anne.
She returned his look quietly. In his rage and weakness he was not pitiful, only disgusting. Thin and gray and unshaven, he was like a mangy old dog, clinging to the dry bone of his respectability. Icy nausea swept Anne. The room began to move, to gyrate in mockery about her. She gripped the wall with her fingers, and the smooth coldness gave her strength.
"Listen, please, and then I don't want to talk about it any more." She knew that her words were audible because they were both looking at her, but her whole effort was concentrated in uttering them and she felt herself forming each syllable separately and throwing it at the two bewildered people before her. "We don't agree, and neither of us wishes to live like that; to hold each other, for what? I am economically independent. I can work. I don't have to stay for support. Roger will help with Rogie and we will go our own ways. We have grown apart spiritually——"
But the last word was too heavy a burden for Hilda's credulity. She went swiftly to Anne and would have put her arms about her, if Anne had not eluded.
"Don't, mamma. Please don't talk or ask me any questions. I am telling you exactly what it is."
"Anne Mitchell! Do you expect me to believe that? Grow apart spiritually! Anne—is there—don't be ashamed—to tell us—is there another woman?"
James Mitchell leaned avidly forward: "Old—sick—but—no man—deserts—my—daughter——"
Under cover of the hissing whisper, Hilda murmured rapidly, "Don't act hastily, Anne. All men——"
The muttering ceased, and Hilda broke off. But a faint shrug and an almost imperceptible nod toward the chair, spread before Anne's sickened sense, some long concealed, almost forgotten infidelity of the decaying old man in the chair.
"Stop. Both of you," she cried sharply. "There is no other woman. Roger has done nothing disgraceful. If you can't understand, I can't make you. We no longer love each other. Marriage is a free contract. It fitted one condition. It doesn't fit another. We've dissolved it."
The old man blinked and then turned piteously to Hilda. She went quickly to him. With her arms again about him, she flared at Anne.
"Anne Mitchell, you're doing a silly and wicked thing. You're—making—papa—miserable. You've no—right—in our old—age——"
James' fingers closed about hers. "Don't—cry—Hildy—children—ungrateful——"
And then, the walls began to dance about her, the two angry faces oscillated like grotesque masks, the floor was sinking under her. A great, peaceful darkness was coming towards her. At last she could let go, sink down into this soothing blackness. Anne swayed, clutched at the wall, and slid along its smoothness to the floor.
Twice she came to partial consciousness of a great bustle; some one was calling, footsteps rushed about, some one stepped over her and ran somewhere. Then she was being lifted and carried, and some one, not Hilda—it sounded like a faint, far echo of Charlotte Welles—said:
"There, she'll be all right now. Don't disturb her. Let her sleep as long as she can."
So dim that it was not clearly a thought at all, Anne was grateful for this suggestion. She heard the door to whatever place she was in close softly and footsteps recede.
When she woke she was in her own little room, the stars were shining and Belle was standing beside the bed. Anne tried to return the cheerful smile, but the effort did not get further than a slight motion of her lips.
"You poor little kid. Here, drink this." Belle held a glass to Anne's lips and supported her while she obeyed. "And then we'll talk. I wouldn't disturb you, but I have to get back on my case and we'll just settle one or two things first. No, I'm not going to talk about it. I don't want to know anything. But you're going away."
Anne gazed at her without interest.
"If you try to stick round here listening to moms' buzzing you'll have brain fever. But they'll buzz themselves out in a week and—" she was going to add, "be glad of it," but caught herself in time and said—"see the thing straight. Now, the only thing I want to know is whether you have any place you'd like to go. Several old patients have places here and there, inaccessible ranches and things, and I could fix up something. They're always inviting me but I'm not keen on solitude as you know." She chattered along, watching Anne with soft, loving eyes. The authority of her tone comforted Anne and she felt a little cheered.
"Of course, I'm not suggesting a high-class resort but somewhere you have never been, that's quiet."
Anne drew a deep sigh. Some new place where it was still!
"There are two places I can arrange for quickly and you can have your choice. One's down in Monterey County, on the coast, a ranch that hangs on a mountain side rising right out of the sea. It——"
Anne sat up. "No. No. Belle, not the sea." She looked past Belle, through the fog of the Bluff to the bar where the sea moaned its everlasting complaint. "I can't stand the sea, always moving and crying—never, never still. Oh," Anne shivered and Belle laid a large, cool hand on the hot little one gripping the comforter.
"All right, sisterkin. I get you. The sea is rather a fussy old party. Exit the sea."
Anne tried to smile. "It's—like the Social Revolution. It's been moaning away for centuries and it's just where it started."
A look of understanding crossed Belle's eyes and was gone before Anne looked up.
"Then the other's the thing you want. It's away up in the high Sierras. There's only an old couple as caretakers. You won't have to see much of them, but the old man—I saw him once—is as still as a tree. I should go crazy in two days but you'll love it."
High up in the mountains, higher and stiller even than the lake. And the old man like a tree. Anne's eyes filled with tears.
"But there's the cottage—all the things—I can't——"
"I'll fix that. I'll write to Roger; he'll have to know you're not there anyhow, and let him struggle with storage if he wants to."
"But—I can't stay away very long. I'm not going to take money from Roger—I'm going to work, I——"
Belle put both hands very gently on Anne's shoulder and forced her back on the pillows from which she had risen in nervous need to manage the details of her going.
"Sisterkin, you've passed out of your own authority now; you're in mine. You're going, and you're going to-morrow and you'll stay until you're well."
"I'm not sick."
"No? All right. But you will be if you don't do as you're told. Listen, kiddie. Is there any real reason why you can't go and go to-morrow?"
Anne shook her head. There was no reason beyond her own desire. There never would be any more. Anne tried to smile. She did not want to cry, not even before Belle.
"How long are you going to make me stay, nurse?"
"There, that's the way to behave. Stay? Until you want to come back. Until—you want noise, jangling cars and people rushing round and the whole silly mess."
"Then—I'll—never—come."
"Don't then." She smoothed the pillows, stroked back the hair from Anne's troubled eyes and smiled.
"You're—awfully—good to me, Belle."
"A perfect angel," Belle agreed, but her own eyes were not quite clear.
"I must have Rogie with me, Belle. Don't—try to manage me out of that."
"We'll settle everything in the morning. I'm not going to insist on anything against your will, kiddie. Don't worry. Only you must go to sleep now and do not think of a thing. You'll be all right after a good night's rest."
The peace of yielding settled upon Anne. Not to think of anything—to go to sleep—and to-morrow—the high, still mountains—and the old man—like—a—tree. Anne's eyes closed.
"I'll do—anything—you—say."
She was asleep before Belle had quite finished opening the window and arranging the blind so that it would not rattle if the wind came up.
Back beside the bed, Belle stood looking down at Anne.
"Poor little kid," she whispered, "poor little kid, she's rather like the sea herself—crying forever for something out of reach." She smoothed a fold in the sheet and added:
"Poor old Roger—he isn't half bad either."