Part 19

“You have lied to me ...” he was saying. “You have never cared at all....” And again the reproach. “You are like all your women ... cold ... magnificent ... not worthy of love.” He came nearer to her. “I will love you.... I will teach you what love can be.... What does he know of love ...? Nothing.... I will give you a happiness such as you never dreamed of.... I ... I am a lover.... I know these things.”

And then he went down suddenly upon his knees, the steel gone swiftly from his voice; the warmth and tenderness flowing back. “You will not refuse me.” He leaned forward and pressed his head against her. “You cannot.... I will give you everything ... all the things which he cannot give you....” And again he took her hands and this time kissed them passionately in a fashion that frightened her and filled her with the old weakness.

The spectacle of his humility, of this sudden collapse of what to her was his dignity, his will, his strength, astonished and embarrassed her. In her coldness it seemed to her incredible that any woman, least of all herself, should possess such power over any man. It was all unreal, beyond belief, and yet it fed her pride and gave her strength with which, one might have said, to destroy her own happiness, to resist the force of circumstances, even of nature, as she had defied it once before in marrying Clarence.

At last he rested his head against her knee and she bent over him, touching his dark hair with gentle fingers.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t.... Please don’t.... It is no good. I know better than you.... I should always be thinking of him.... I should never be happy, so neither of us could be happy. There are some things which I cannot do ... and this is one. It is impossible.”

They said nothing more. Richard remained kneeling with his head against her knees and slowly the old peace which she had not known in months took possession of her, heightened now by a new knowledge of her completeness and power. It was a kind of satisfaction which was new to her, an emotion which was heady and intoxicating. She was uplifted, free now of Callendar, free of Clarence, free of everything in all the world ... alone, liberated, triumphant. She had defeated them all. And when he turned toward her for the last time there was a look in her eyes which said, “It is no use. You need have no hope. It can never be.”

On leaving, he kissed her hand, gently this time as if the passion had gone out of him. All he said was, “I shall do then what they expect of me. Some day you may wish for what you have thrown away.... I don’t imagine a thing like this happens every day.”

He was polite but, like herself, he was unbroken. He appeared to have regained possession of himself, to have become cold and calm and even a trifle indifferent. That was all he said and when he had gone the sight of his back, so slim, so strong, so inscrutable, filled her with a sudden weakness, for she knew that she had closed the door not alone upon Callendar but upon his mother, upon Sabine, upon the big house on Murray Hill, upon all that she had built up with such terrible patience.

* * * * *

He did what was expected of him. In a fortnight there appeared in the newspapers an announcement of the engagement of Richard Callendar to Sabine Cane. It described the great fortune of the prospective bridegroom and enlarged upon the social position of the happy couple. On the same day there was a paragraph apprising the world of the fact that Thérèse Callendar had sailed as usual to spend the remainder of the year abroad. But there was nothing said of the girl whom the world had seen lunching with Richard Callendar in Sherry’s. She was talked of, to be sure, in the circles in which Mrs. Champion and the Virgins, Mrs. Mallinson and the Apostle to the Genteel, were shining lights. They agreed that it must have been the clever Thérèse who disposed of the girl (perhaps paid her well) and made the match she desired; and they predicted with some satisfaction an unhappy life for Sabine. But Sabine in the end had won her game of patience, though she never knew the reason.

34

It was in the weeks which followed the final meeting that Ellen came really to suffer. Together there in the shabby little room she had been sustained by the very struggle between them, by all the excitement that warmed and strengthened her. Now that he was gone forever, he kept returning to her in a fashion more terrifying than he had ever been in the flesh. Even at night when she lay in the apple green bed, so near and yet remote from Clarence, trying always to conceal from him the faintest suspicion, she could not free her memory from the sound of his voice and the persuasion of his hands. The memory of him haunted her, so that she grew pale and thin and Clarence, filled as always with nervous anxiety, urged her to go away into the country. In moments of depression she even reproached herself with being a fool for having thrown away what Callendar could have given her ... his wealth, which she needed, the place which he could have given her in the world. Indeed when life seemed altogether hopeless, she went so far as to contemplate a return to the Town, a thing she had sworn never to do save in triumph.

Clarence, understanding dimly that she was unhappy, sought to help her with a kindness that hurt her more deeply than any cruelty could have done. There were nights when he lay awake listening until the gray light appeared over the river and the sound of her regular breathing told him that at last she was asleep. Beneath the strain he too became pale and thin. His nose grew more pointed and his little round shoulders more and more stooped. In the mornings when Ellen, busy over his breakfast, caught rare glimpses of him, as he patiently did his exercises on the floor of the bath room, she was smitten with the old sense of pity at the thinness of his poor body. It hurt her in a fierce way because it was so different from the catlike suppleness of the man who was gone now forever. It was the valiant quality in Clarence, the struggle to be worthy of her, to make her always love him that made her helpless. Until now she had never clearly understood the power he had over her. It was the terrible power which the weak have over the strong.

* * * * *

It proved a hot, breathless summer when the asphalt turned spongy and the carriage wheels left great ruts and ridges. Even on the top floor of the Babylon Arms there was no coolness save on the rare nights when the wind, blowing up the river from the free and open sea, penetrated the high windows. It became more and more difficult too when Clarence came to her one evening and said, “I’m sorry dear, but we must economize. I find that we have been living beyond our income.”

He said it so meekly, so apologetically and he looked so weary that she kissed him and replied, “I have money saved ... money that I earned this winter. We can use that if we’re in a tight place.”

But he refused it. He assured her that there was no such deep necessity. He would not, he said, take anything she earned. He must support them always. And when she told him that this was absurd, he straightened himself and grew indignant.

“I couldn’t do that,” he said. “If you’ll give me time, we’ll be rich one day.... I’m getting ahead. It’s not easy. There’s so much competition. Don’t think I’m a failure.” He took her hand and pressed it savagely. “You won’t think that ... will you?... Just be patient and give me time. I’ll be rich some day.”

Time! Time! She knew then what she had always known--that time would make no difference with Clarence. There was no way out. Whatever was to be done, she must do it herself. The old passion swept her. She would not sink. She would not yield to circumstance. She would die rather than fail!

35

When Fergus came in early September to make his home in the little flat atop the Babylon Arms, the strain, the weariness, the very heat itself appeared for a time to dissipate. He was, of course, a novelty. Into an existence which had become flat and stale through the long routine of petty things, into a monotony which even the energy of Ellen was unable to dissipate, the brother carried a sense of excitement. At seventeen he bore a resemblance to his father, but only in a physical sense, for there was more dash, more vitality in him than there had ever been in Charles Tolliver. Tall, with wide shoulders and blue eyes that looked out from beneath sensuous drooping lids, he possessed the same blond charm which in Charles Tolliver’s youth had made the vigorous Hattie Barr his slave. In the son there was even the same echo of that quality which the world, in its stupidity, called weakness and which was not weakness at all. The boy as yet was too young to understand what it was; the father, long past middle age, knew that it was a precious gift, a quality which protected him against the pettiness of the same stupid world. It was a disarming tolerance and geniality that made him friend alike to every one, beggar or prince, who passed his way. Father or son would have been at home in any part of the world; they would have found friends among the Lapps as easily as among the farmers of their own county; the Moros would have received them as honored comrades. It was a quality that transcended limitations of family, of nationality, of race; it was a simple friendliness. And in their way they loved life as passionately as Ellen and Hattie Tolliver; the difference lay in the fact that their joy was a warm, glowing, steady emotion less spectacular and vivid.

* * * * *

It was Clarence who suffered the first onslaught of the brother’s charm, for Fergus arrived to find his brother-in-law lying in one of the green beds, alone in the flat. Carrying bundles of luggage carefully prepared by the hand of Hattie, he burst into the room and came suddenly upon Clarence, asleep beneath the blankets, his mouth open a little way, his face a shade near to the green of the painted beds. Asleep and off his guard, Clarence was not a spirited picture. Fergus could not have remembered him distinctly, for he had seen him but twice and then long ago in the days when he was courting May Seton. More than three years had passed and Fergus, standing now at the foot of the bed, big and placid and blond, regarded his brother-in-law with the air of a stranger. Clarence slept quietly; his narrow nose appeared more pinched than it had been; the brown tousled hair had thinned until at the back of his head there appeared a tiny island that was entirely bald. The nervous, knotty hands lay outside the cover, pale and covered with pallid skin that was transparent and showed beneath it a network of tiny blue veins.

If Ellen had come in that moment, her brother, in his naïve honesty, might have turned to her and asked, “What have you done to him?” But she did not come and, as he turned to leave the room, Clarence stirred and opened his eyes. Out of the depths of his sleep he emerged painfully, leaning for an instant on one elbow and staring silently in reply to the cheery “Hello” of Fergus.

“It’s me--Fergus,” said the boy. “I just came in.”

Again Clarence stared for a time and then murmured slowly. “Oh! yes. It’s you!... I didn’t recognize you at first.... I was having a dream ... a bad dream. Won’t you sit down?”

It was a stiff greeting, somewhat awkward, not because the boy was unwelcome but because Clarence, who would have welcomed the devil himself for the sake of his wife, was ill at ease. It may have been the dream that disturbed him.

Fergus pulled up a chair beside the bed, and asked if his brother-in-law were ill.

“It’s nothing,” was the answer. “It’s just a bilious attack. I have them every now and then.... I’ll be over it in a day or two.”

Then he lay back once more, wearily, and asked Fergus about his trip and about his mother and father and the people in the Town--all save the Setons. They made polite conversation to each other and Clarence, beneath the spell of the boy’s friendliness, melted a little so that the stiffness presently slipped away. But after a time the conversation for want of interest died back into silence and Fergus went to the window to feast his young eyes on the panorama of the river and the great city into which he had escaped. The boy was happy with an animal sort of joy which showed itself in the very lines of his tall body, in the brightness of his blue eyes. He too was free now, a rover, attached to nothing.

“It’s a great place,” he said presently, and turning from the window, added, “I think I’ll get settled.... Where do I hang out?”

He had picked up his hat before Clarence said, “Wait.... There’s something I want to talk to you about.... Just a minute.” And then humbly after a pause: “It won’t be long.”

* * * * *

So the boy seated himself again and waited while Clarence sat up in bed, looking thin and worried in his mauve pajamas, and, after coughing nervously, said, “It’s about Ellen.... You know her better than I do.... I’ve lived with her for three years but she’s more like you.... She’s not like me, at all.”

Fergus stirred nervously and blushed a little, perhaps in doubt of what Clarence was to say.

“It’s about Ellen,” Clarence repeated, looking down at the quilt. “I don’t think she’s happy and I don’t know what to do about it.”

The boy laughed. “Oh, she’s always like that.... It doesn’t mean anything. She used to be cross with us at home most of the time.” He knew Ellen well enough. She was a cross, bad-tempered girl whom you could control if you understood the method.

“I don’t mean that.... I’ve known her when she’s like that.... This is different.” He halted for a moment and fell to tracing the design on the quilt with his thin finger. He was thinking, thinking, trying to explain. “No, it’s not like that,” he said presently. “It’s worse than that. She never complains.... She never says anything. Only it doesn’t go away.... It hangs ... like a cloud. I’m not meaning to complain about her.... It’s my fault if it’s any one’s.... But she’s sad now ... in spite of anything I can do.” And then he added painfully, “She’s unhappy.”

Fergus waited. He sat with the air of a man desiring to escape, as if he would in some way repel these confidences and force Clarence into silence. He hated confidences, sorrow, trouble, of any sort. But Clarence was not to be silenced. He even grew a little excited.

“You see, the trouble goes back farther than that.... I can’t explain it.... I don’t know how.... Only she’s never belonged to me at all. She’s always escaping me.... And I try and try.”

“It’s her music,” repeated Fergus. “She’s crazy about it.... She always has been.” Sitting there he seemed the symbol of a youth which could have no belief in disaster. He would never be hurt as Clarence was being hurt.

Clarence, ignoring the interruption, continued. “I married her and she’s my wife.... She’s a good wife and she does everything for me.... She never refuses me anything....” He coughed and, looking down, added, “Not even herself.”

The color in Fergus’ cheeks flamed out now. He too became ill at ease.

“Don’t think,” said Clarence, “that I mean to complain. It’s all my fault. A man ought to be able to make his wife happy.... I’ve tried hard. I’ve tried to make money. I’m good to her ... but....” He trailed into silence for a time and when he returned it was easy to say, “But somehow she escapes me always.... There’s something in her that doesn’t belong to me. I don’t know what it is because I’ve never been able to discover it.... And you can’t talk to her about such things.... I’ve tried. Once I got almost to the point and she said, ‘Don’t worry, Clarence. You mustn’t take things so seriously.... I’m all right. Don’t think about me.’ But I can’t help thinking, because when she’s unhappy I am too, because I love her so much. I’d do anything for her.”

He lay back and fell to regarding the ceiling. Fergus, in silence, watched him now with a look of intense curiosity. Perhaps he guessed what it was Ellen had done to him. Perhaps he realized that, without knowing it, he had himself come to look upon Clarence in the same fashion that his sister regarded him ... as a nice, kind, good man whom one tolerated. He was older and paler and more insignificant than he had been in the days when he courted May Seton. What the man needed perhaps was some one--a wife--who would lean upon him, who would think him a wonderful creature. And instead of that he had Ellen. Clarence rose on one elbow and said slowly, “But don’t tell her.... Don’t say I spoke of it.”

It was the end of their talk. They never mentioned the thing again, but in some way the conversation appeared to bring Clarence a kind of dumb relief.

Of course, there were things that Fergus could not have known. He could not have known--Fergus, who took life so lightly--that the little man’s only experience with love had been Ellen. He could not have known that Clarence was the victim of a sensual nature placed by some ironic trick of fate in the body of a prig. He could not have known that the man was the victim of that little vein, so amusing to Lily, which with the march of the years beat less and less passionately. He could not have known that Clarence had discovered love in the body of Ellen and was now love’s victim--that he was being destroyed because he had never known, even now, what love might be.

Of this secret Fergus said nothing to Ellen, perhaps because Clarence had asked him to keep silence and perhaps because he came to understand in the succeeding days that in her present mood, it would serve only to increase the strain. It was not until years afterward that he broke his silence and wrote her that he had known from the first day how matters stood. In his good-natured way, he sought rather to drive away the mood entirely. During the remainder of the week, while Clarence lay in bed, the brother and sister made excursions together into various parts of the city and Ellen, for a little time, grew again eager and filled with the old restless energy. They understood each other, this pair, in a miraculous fashion, though they were in many ways so different. They looked upon the world in the same way, as a great pie from which plums are to be wrested. They knew the same delights of being free and alone, the strange joy of being a part of a vast spectacle from which they were, at the same time, curiously aloof. For neither of them did the past exist. They lived wholly in the future. If there was a difference it lay in this--that Fergus looked upon the future as a land filled with a host of careless delights; to Ellen the future was a country in which lay the rewards of fame, of wealth, of vindication. She would force those who had mocked to bend their knees. As for these, Fergus never even thought of them. The world to him was a friendly place.

* * * * *

He began presently to attend his classes. Clarence recovered and returned to the offices of the Superba Electrical Company, and Ellen, pondering secret plans for the expedition to Paris and Lily, returned to her endless practising. In the evenings she played magnificently, for she had now a superb audience in the person of Fergus who, sprawling on the divan with his eyes closed, listened to her in a sensual abandonment. There were times when it must have seemed to her that Callendar had returned and listened. The old likeness, so elusive, so indefinable, came to live again in the long evenings. She could not say what it was, save that they both possessed a wildness not to be hindered by ambition or restraint or even laws. They were both among those who were born free.

But as the month of October advanced, a depression appeared slowly to envelope her. To Fergus the change became apparent and to Clarence it was acute. She betrayed herself by no single thought or action; it was far less simple and direct. Outwardly she went through the old motions of living. Sometimes in the autumn evenings when the husband and the brother sat listening to her music, Clarence would turn his pale eyes toward Fergus with a look which said, “You see what I mean? What am I to do?” The grayness trapped them all, even the genial, careless boy.

In the hours when she was alone, she did things which might have betrayed her, had they been known. Instead of spending the long hours at her piano she walked for miles, sometimes along the river, sometimes in the park. And she developed a new interest in newspapers, an interest which centered itself upon the columns setting forth the doings in the world of the rich and fashionable. From these she learned that Thérèse Callendar and her son had returned from abroad, bringing with them Sabine and a trousseau which cost fabulous sums. She discovered that the wedding party was not to be in Sabine’s narrow house (it was too small) but in the solid brownstone house of the Callendars. The wedding, said the columns, was to be not in the flamboyant new St. Jude’s on the Avenue but in St. Bart’s two blocks away, a small church of dark brown stone, rather shabby but really distinguished. Knowledge of this sort she had picked up in the course of her brief adventure into the world. She understood the difference between St. Jude’s which was the richest church and St. Bart’s which was the most fashionable. These things were put away in the little pigeonholes of her observing brain (so like the pigeonholes in Gramp Tolliver’s walnut desk).

She learned all this and never once did she betray any sign of her knowledge or her interest. Clarence would have known nothing of the wedding save that Mr. Wyck, over one of their greasy lunches far down town, mentioned it to him with the sly suggestion that his wife might be interested and would no doubt be invited. Wyck appeared to know most of the details, for in the secrecy of his bleak room he read the society columns, and there was always the backstairs gossip which came to him through the two aunts in Yonkers. Over the apple-sauce, and under the eye of the peroxide blonde cashier, he insinuated other things, suggestions that Ellen might even be more interested than her husband imagined, but Clarence either was too stupid to understand these hints or in his loyalty saw fit to ignore them.

But when he returned to the flat he did say to Ellen, “I see your friend Mrs. Callendar’s son is being married. I suppose you’ll be invited to the wedding.”

Ellen glanced at him sharply and then returned to her work. “No,” she said calmly. “I don’t think I’ll be invited. Why should I be?”

“I didn’t know,” he replied awkwardly. “I thought they were friends of yours.”

“No. I worked for them.... A thing like that means nothing.”

After that he was silent and for a time wore an air of disappointment. She knew, beyond all doubt, that it would have pleased him to know that his wife had been invited to a fashionable wedding. The old ambitions, less vigorous now, stirred more and more rarely. To-night, for a moment they had been kindled, but it was the last time they ever raised their dangerous heads. Clarence read his newspaper and did not speak again of the event.