Part 1

Chapter 14,297 wordsPublic domain

THE WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE

By Jennette Lee

Illustrated by A. I. Keller And Arthur E. Becher

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York

1914

Published September, 1914

GERALD STANLEY LEE

“Room after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her--

Next time, herself!--not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew;

Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

“Yet the day wears

And door succeeds door;

I try the fresh fortune--

Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.

Still the same chance! She goes out as I enter.

Spend my whole day in the quest,--who cares?

But ’tis twilight, you see--with such suites to explore,

Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune.”

ELDRIDGE WALCOTT paused in front of the great building; he looked up and hesitated and went in. He crossed the marble lobby and passed through the silent, swinging doors on the opposite side and stepped into a softly lighted café. He had never been in Merwin’s before, though he had often heard of it, and he was curious as to what it would be like. There was a sound of music somewhere and low voices and the tinkle of silver and glass behind the little green curtains. He entered an alcove at the left and sat down. The restfulness of the place soothed him, and he sat listening to the distant music and looking out between the parted curtains of the alcove to the room with its little tables filling the space beyond the green-curtained alcoves on either side and the people seated at the tables. They were laughing and eating and talking and drinking from delicate cups or turning slender-stemmed glasses in their fingers as they talked. Beyond the tables rose a small platform; a woman had just mounted it and was bowing to the scattered tables. The sound of voices ceased an instant and hands clapped faintly here and there. The woman on the platform bowed again and looked at the accompanist, who struck the opening bars. It was a light, trivial song with more personality than art in the singing of it, and the audience applauded perfunctorily, hardly breaking off its talk to acknowledge that it was done. The woman stepped down from the platform and joined a group at a table near by, and waiters moved among the tables, refilling cups and glasses and taking orders.

A waiter paused by the alcove where Eldridge Walcott was sitting and pushed back the little curtain and looked in and waited. Eldridge took up the card on the table before him; he fingered it a little awkwardly and laid it down: “Bring me cigars,” he said.

The waiter scribbled on a card and passed on. When he had completed the alcoves on the left he turned and went back along the right, pausing before each one and bending forward to listen and take the order on his card. As he approached the third alcove he pushed back the curtain that half concealed it at the back and bent forward. When he passed on the curtain did not fall into place; it remained caught on the back of the seat. From where Eldridge sat he could see the woman seated in the alcove. She was alone, her back to him, her head a little bent as if in thought.

He glanced at her carelessly and along the row of green curtains to the tables beyond. It was all much as he had imagined it--a place where one could spend time and money without too much exertion. It was the money part of it that interested Eldridge. His client had asked him to look into it for him as an investment, and he had decided on this informal way of appraising it. To-morrow he was to go over the books and accounts. The owners wanted a stiff price for the goodwill. It was probably worth what they were asking he decided as he watched the careless, happy crowd. People who came here were not thinking how much they could save.... It was not the sort of place he should care to come to often himself. Life to Eldridge was a serious, drab affair compared with Merwin’s. He liked to think how much he could save; and when he had saved it he liked to invest it where it would breed more.... He might take a few shares of the capital stock himself--his client had suggested it.

The waiter brought the cigars and Eldridge lighted one and leaned back, smoking and enjoying the relaxed air of the place. He could understand dimly how people liked this sort of thing and would come day after day for music and talk and the purposelessness of it all; it was a kind of huge, informal club with a self-elected membership.

As a prospective investor the charm of it pleased him. They ought to be able to make a good thing of it. He fell to making little calculations; it was part of his power as a successful man of business that he understood detail and the value of small things.

He was not a financier, but he handled small interests well and he had built up a comfortable fortune. From being in debt before he married, he had advanced slowly until now his investments made a good showing. He could probably live on the income to-morrow if he chose.... He blew a little ring of smoke.... His investments and what they were mounting to was a kind of epic poem to Eldridge’s slow-moving mind.... Yes--he would take a few shares of the café stock. He looked thoughtfully at his cigar and calculated how many, and what they would be worth.... The music had taken the form of a young boy with a violin who stood absorbed in his playing, a kind of quick fervor in his face and figure. The voices had ceased and only now and then a cup clicked.

Eldridge lifted his eyes from the cigar. The woman in the alcove had moved nearer the end of the seat and was watching the boy, her lips parted on a half smile.

The cigar dropped from Eldridge’s fingers. He stared at the woman--stared--and stirred vaguely.

She turned a little and Eldridge reached out his hand and drew a quick curtain between them.

Through the slit he could still see the figure of the woman, her head thrown a little back, her eyes following the bow of music as it rose and fell, and the lips smiling in happy content--He drew a quick breath.

Slowly a deep flush came into his face--How dared Rosalind come here! It was a respectable place--of course--but how dared she spend her time and money--his money and time that belonged to her home and her children--in a place like this?... Her hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes followed the music.

She had barely touched the glass on the table before her, he noted, or the plate of little biscuit. She seemed to sit in a dream.... His mind whirled. Six hours before he had said good-by to her at the breakfast table--a plain, drab woman in shabby clothes, with steel-rimmed spectacles that looked at him with a little line between the eyes and reminded him that he needed to order coal for the range and a new clothes-line.... He had ordered the coal, but he recalled suddenly that he had forgotten the clothes-line; he had intended to see if he could get one cheaper at a wholesale place he knew of; his memory held the clothes-line fast in the left lobe of his brain while the grey matter of the right lobe whirled excitedly about the woman in the alcove.

She had raised a lorgnette to her eyes and was looking at the boy violinist, a little, happy, wistful smile on her lips.... Eldridge had not seen her smile like that for years. His left lobe abandoned the clothes-line and recalled to him when it was he saw the little smile, half wistful, half happy, on her face.... They were standing by the gate, and he was saying good night; the moon had just come up, and there was a fragrant bush beside the path that gave out the smell of spring; the left lobe yielded up fragrance and moonlight and the little wistful smile while his quick eye followed the lorgnette; it had dropped to her lap, and her hands were folded on it.... Rosalind--! A gold lorgnette--and draperies, soft, gauzy lines and folds of silk--and a hat on her shining, lifted hair, like a vague coronet! Eldridge Walcott held his cigar grimly between his teeth; the cigar had gone out--both lobes had ceased to whirl.... A kind of frozen light held his face. His hand groped for his hat. Why should he not step across the aisle and sit down in the chair opposite her and confront her?--the green curtains would shut them in.... Both lobes stared at the thought and held it tight--to face Rosalind, a grey, frightened woman in her finery, behind the little green curtains! He shook himself loose and stood up. Softly his hand drew back the curtain, and he stepped out. They were clapping the boy violinist, who had played to the end, and Eldridge moved toward the swinging doors and passed out and stood in the lobby. He wiped his forehead.... A sound of moving chairs came from behind the doors, and he crossed the lobby quickly and plunged into the crowd. It was five o’clock, and the streets were filled with people hurrying home. Eldridge turned against the tide and crossed a side street and pressed east, his feet seeming to find a way of their own. He was not thinking where he would go--except that it must be away from her. He could not face her yet--Who _was_ she? There was the drab woman of the morning, waiting for him to come home with the clothesline, and there was the woman of the alcove, splendid, gentle, with the little smile and the gold lorgnette.... Rosalind--Fifteen years he had lived with her, and he had known her ten years before that--there was nothing _queer_ about Rosalind! He lifted his head a little proudly--The woman he had just left was very beautiful! It struck him for the first time that she was beautiful, and he half stopped.

He walked more slowly, taking it in--Rosalind was not beautiful; she had not been beautiful--even as a girl--only pretty, with a kind of freshness and freedom about her and something in her eyes that he had not understood--It was the look that had drawn him--He was always wondering about it. Sometimes he saw it in the night--as if it flitted when he woke. He had not thought of it for years. Something in the woman’s shoulder and the line of her head was like it. But the woman was very _beautiful!_--Suppose it were not Rosalind after all! He gave a quick breath, and his feet halted and went on. Then a thought surged at him, and he walked fast--he almost ran. No--No--! It was as if he put his hands over his ears to shut it out. Other women--but not _his_ wife! She had children--_three_ children! He tried to think of the children to steady himself. He pictured her putting them to bed at night, bending above Tommie and winding a flannel bandage tight around his throat for croup; he could see her quite plainly, the quick, efficient fingers and firm, roughened hands drawing the bed-clothes in place and tucking them in.... The woman’s hands had rested so quietly in her lap! Were they rough?--She had worn gloves--he remembered now--soft gloves, like the color in her gown.... He stared at the gloves--they were long--they came to the elbow--yes, there was a kind of soft, lacy stuff that fell away from them--yes, they were long gloves.... They must have cost----

He tried to think what the gloves must have cost, but he had nothing to go by. Rosalind had never worn such gloves, nor his mother or sisters. Only women who were very rich wore gloves like that--or women----

He faced the thought at last. He had come out where the salt air struck him; the town and its lights had fallen behind; there was the marsh to cross, and he was on a long beach, the wind in his face, the water rolling up in spray and sweeping slowly back--He strode forward, his head to the wind.... There was no one that she knew--no man.... How should she know any one that he did not know!

She was never away.... But was he--sure! How did he know what went on--all day... half past seven till seven at night? In the evenings she mended the children’s clothes and he looked over the paper. Sometimes they talked about things and planned how they could get along. Rosalind was a good manager. He saw her sitting beside the lamp, in her cheap dress, her head bent over the figures, working it out with him--and he saw the woman in the alcove--the clothes she wore--he drew back before it--more than the whole family spent in a year!... The gloves alone might have bought her Sunday suit--Sunday was, after all, the only day he knew where she was--in church with him and, in the afternoon, lying down in her room while he took the children for a walk.... He was a good father--he set his teeth to it defiantly, against the wind. She could not accuse _him_ of neglect.... Suddenly a hurt feeling stirred somewhere deep down--He did not look at it; he did not know it was there. But the first shock had passed. He was not bewildered any more. He could think steadily, putting point to point, building up the “case”.... Then, suddenly, he would see her in the great spectacles, reminding him of the clothes-line--and his “case” collapsed like a foolish little card house.... Not Rosalind--other women, perhaps--but not Rosalind.... He turned slowly back, the wind behind him urging him on. He would go home--to her. Perhaps when he saw her he should know what to think.... But perhaps she had not yet come home. If he hurried he might get there before her and face her as she came in. He hurried fast, he almost ran, and when he reached the streets he signalled a cab; he had not used a cab for years; it would cost a dollar, at least--He looked out at the half-deserted street--the crowd had thinned. He held his watch where the light of the street arc flashed across it--six-thirty. Half an hour before his usual time. He paid the fare and went quickly up the steps.... The children were talking in the dining-room. There was no other sound. He opened the door and looked in. She was standing by the table looking at Tommie’s coat--There was a rent in the shoulder and the face bent above it had a look of quiet patience--The grey-drab hair was parted exactly in the middle and combed smoothly down; the eyes behind the spectacles looked up--with the little line between them. When she saw who it was she glanced for a moment at the clock and then back at him--“Did you bring the clothesline?” she asked.

He stared at her a moment--at her plain, cheap dress and homely face. Then he turned away. “I--forgot,” he said.

WHEN supper was done and the children in bed she moved about the room for a few minutes putting things to rights. Eldridge, sitting by the table, held his newspaper in his hand and now and then he rustled it and turned it over; his eyes did not leave the little black printed marks, but his real eyes were not following the marks; they were watching the woman; they tried to dart upon her in her plainness and make her speak. There was something monstrous to him--that they should be here together, in this room--he could have touched her with his hand as she moved past him--yet they were a thousand miles apart. He cleared his throat; he would force her, accuse her, make her reveal what was going on behind the earnest-looking glasses.... He turned the paper and began another page.... If he were another man he might spring at her--take her by the throat--force her back--back against the wall--and _make_ her speak! She had finished tidying the room and came over to the table, the torn coat in her hand; she was looking down at the frayed threads in the rent, the little line between her eyes; he did not look up or move; he could hear her breathing--then she gave a little sigh and laid the coat on the table.... She was leaving the room. His eyes leaped after her and came back.

When she returned she spread the roll of pieces on the table and selected one, slipping it in beneath the rent; he could see--without taking his eyes from the page--he could see the anxious, faintly red knuckles and her fingers fitting the piece in place with deft, roughened tips. She had a kind of special skill at mending, making old things new. When they were first married it had been one of their little jokes--how lucky she was to have married a poor man. He had kissed her fingers one day--he recalled it--when she had shown him the little skilful darn in his coat; he had called it a kind of poem and he had kissed her. It seemed almost shameless to him, behind his paper--the foolishness was shameless--of kissing her for that....

She was sewing swiftly now with the short, still movements that came and went like breaths; her head was bent over the coat and he could see the parting of her hair; he dropped his eye to it for a minute and rustled the paper and turned it vaguely. “I was in at Merwin’s this afternoon,” he said.

The needle paused a dart--and went on rhythmically, in and out. “Did you like it?” she asked. She had not lifted her head from her work.

He turned a casual page and read on--“Oh, so-so.” It was the sort of absent-minded talk they often had--a kind of thinking out loud without interest in one another.

“It is a popular place, isn’t it?”

She was smoothing the edges of the patch thoughtfully; there was a little smile on her lip.

He folded his paper. “I’m going to bed,” he announced.

She glanced quickly at the clock and resumed her work. “I must finish this. He hasn’t any other to wear.” The needle went in and out.

Eldridge rose and stretched himself above her. He looked down at her--at the swift-moving hands and grey closeness of her dress. He would like to take her in his hands and crush out of her the thoughts--make her speak out the thoughts that followed the swift-going needle; he did not know that he wanted this--he was only feeling over and over, in some deep, angry place--“What the devil was she doing there? What the----”

He moved about the room a minute and ’went out. The woman by the table sewed on. A bolt shot in the front hall and Eldridge’s feet mounted the stairs slowly. Then the room was quiet--only the clock and the needle.

Presently the needle stopped--the woman’s hands lay folded in her lap. The figure was motionless, the head bent--only across her face moved the little smile.... The clock travelled round and whirred its warning note and struck, and she only stirred a little, as if a breath escaped her, and took up her work, looking at it blindly.

A sound came in the hall and she looked up.

He stood in the doorway, his old dressing-gown wrapped around him, his hands gaunt, with the little hairs at the wrist uncovered by cuffs.

She looked at him, smiling absently. There was something almost beautiful in her face as she lifted it to him--“When are you coming to bed?” he asked harshly.

“Why, right now, Eldridge--I must have been dreaming.” She gathered up the work from her lap. “I hope I haven’t kept you awake.”

He stood looking at her a minute. Then he wheeled about without response. His feet beneath the bath gown moved awkwardly. But the spine in the bath gown had a cold, dignified, offended look--a kind of grotesque stateliness--as it disappeared through the doorway.

The woman looked after it, the little, gathering smile still on her face. Then she turned toward the lamp and put it out, and the radiant smile close to the lamp became a part of the dark.

III

BY morning it had become a dream.

Eldridge was late and he hurried from the house and hurried all the morning to catch up. By luncheon time he was in another world. He took plenty of time for his luncheon; it was one of the things he had learned--to eat his luncheon slowly and take time to digest it. Sometimes he read the paper, sometimes he dropped into a moving-picture show for a few minutes afterward. But to-day he did neither. He sat in the restaurant--it was a crowded restaurant, all America coming and going--and he watched it idly. He had a rested, comfortable feeling, as if he had escaped some calamity. It seemed foolish now, as he looked back--a kind of fever in the blood that had twisted the commonest things into queer shape. He looked back over it dispassionately--it was the woman in Merwin’s who had started it, of course; there _was_ something about her--something like Rosalind--curiously like her--it was like what Rosalind _might_ have been, more than what she was--a kind of spirited-up Rosalind! He smiled grimly.

He called for his check; and while he waited he saw her again, the figure of the woman--not in the restaurant--but in a kind of vision--in the alcove behind the curtain, her head a little bent, her hands folded quietly in her lap... who _was_ she--? His heart gave a sudden twist and stopped--He had never felt like this about--any one--had he? He looked down at a red check, with its stamped black figures, and fumbled in his pocket--and brought out a coin and laid it beside the check and stared at it.... The check and the coin slipped away and he stared at the marble top. Suppose he saw her--again... some time.... Two coins reappeared on the table and he picked them up. Then he put back one and felt for his hat and went out.... The traffic shrieked at him and people jostled him with their elbows and hurried him, and he jostled back and woke up and shook off the queerness and went about his work.... He was forty-one years old and his property was all well invested. It had never occurred to him that he could be different from himself.... He read in the paper of people who did things--did things different from themselves, suddenly--people who squandered fortunes in a day, or murdered and ran away from business--and their wives--people who committed suicide. Vicariously, he knew all about how queer men could be... and his chief experience with it all, with this world that his newspaper rolled before him every day, was a kind of wonder that people would do such things and a knowledge, deeper than faith or conviction, that Eldridge Walcott would never do any of them. He explained such men--if he explained them at all--by saying that they must have a screw loose somewhere. Perhaps he thought of men, vaguely, as put together with works inside, carefully adjusted and screwed in place, warranted, with good usage, to run so long; certainly it had not occurred to him that a man could change much after he was forty years old.

He went back to business refreshed, more refreshed than his luncheon often left him. He thought of Rosalind, now and then, with a kind of thankfulness--Rosalind waiting for him at night with the children, life moving on in the same comfortable way. He had even a moment’s flash of thankfulness to the unknown woman that she had made him see how comfortable he was, how much he had to be thankful for in his quiet life. It was a profitable afternoon--the best stroke of business in six months; and he flattered himself that he handled it well. He felt unusually alive, alert. On the way home he passed a florist’s and half stopped, looking down at a beautiful plant that flamed on a bench outside the door; he did not know what it was; they were all “plants” to him, except roses--he knew a rose--this was not a rose; he looked at it a moment and hurried on.... She would think it strange if he brought her anything like a plant.

The idea grew with him the next day and the next. Why should he not give her something? She deserved it. There seemed always some good reason why her clothes were the last to be bought and the plainest and shabbiest--and a woman’s clothes could always be made over.... Suppose she had a new suit--something that was really good--Suppose he got it for her--would she be in the least like that--other--one--? He had long ago abandoned the idea that there was a real resemblance between them. He knew now that he must have been overwrought, excited in some mysterious way--the woman herself seemed to have excited him.