The Strange Woman

by Ben Ames Williams

  ‘Drunkenness itself is praised by no one. The very sight of the drunkard is enough to disgust all who see him. But who made him a drunkard? From what class do drunkards come? Let no one presume to say: “I am safe. Am I a dog that I should become a drunkard?” No one goes to ruin all at once. No one plunges headlong into the pit. It is the little foxes that gnaw the vines, the little surrenders that corrupt us in the end. We venture near the edge, we skirt it, perilously near; till suddenly we find ourselves falling—beyond redemption!’

  His eye met Jenny’s, and he thought suddenly that she was a peril which in reckless folly he regularly courted. At the thought his words acquired a savage and ironic force. His eye while he spoke found her in the crowded hall, and his glance returned to her again and again, almost accusingly, till it was as though he spoke to her alone.

  ‘All these things you have heard over and over and over!’ he cried. ‘And you have listened with nodding heads, and strong Amens, wishing your neighbor to believe that you accented these reproaches instead of wincing beneath them.’ He flung his hand high. ‘But the time has come when nods and Amens are not enough. It is time for passion, for wrath and passion, for striking down this thing.’ His eye found Jenny again, and for a moment his voice changed, so that he seemed to be speaking to himself as he repeated:

  ‘Yes, it is the little surrenders that destroy us. We say: “I will drink a little wine for the stomach’s sake, but I will not take ardent spirits.” Yet let us sip enough wine and our steps become uncertain and we stumble and are lost. It is the little foxes that gnaw the vines. No one deliberately says: “I will now destroy myself 1” He says: “I am strong and sure of foot and wise. I can skirt the pit in safety.” Till he falls.

  ‘So here today we have heard said the same old things. Down in Devil’s Half Acre, the gaming hells are waiting, and the rum-sellers are waiting, and the bawds are waiting; and young men come to our city, from the clean meadows of the sea, from the frozen beauty of our forests, from the river sparkling in the sun, to be robbed of money and of manhood and of life in the traps and pitfalls we allow to be set for them. And our Mayor and our police officers tell us to close our eyes, to turn our backs and hold our noses, while this stinking thing crawls in slime around our heels!

  ‘They speak to us of patience and of calmness and of composure; but I tell you tonight: The time for patience is past! The time for halfway measures is past! While we assure ourselves that we are safe—if we will only turn our backs and pretend not to smell and hear what goes on behind us—young men are being debauched with our permission and consent. We are all alike guilty of their destruction! We are as guilty as though we pressed the cup into their reluctant hands!

  ‘The time for patience and long waiting and for whispering disapproval is past! A hundred brave men could lay all that sink of iniquity in ashes in a night, and make our city clean! I see your heads are not nodding now. Perhaps you deplore my heat and violence. Well, I deplore your shaking, disapproving heads. It is time for violence! It is time for passion!’

  He flung up his hands in a wide gesture, towering above them, flaming with his own earnestness. ‘Arise!’ he cried. ‘Arise and be men! If this leprous scab of iniquity is allowed to survive, it will devour the whole city in the end. If Devil’s Half Acre be a good thing, let us say so and stop this womanish mewing! If it be a bad thing, why, then with God’s help let us wipe it out, so that the place where it was shall know it never more!’

  He finished, his strong voice ringing in the silent hall, and stood a moment shaken with his own emotion. He saw Jenny, saw no one but her, for the long instant that he stood there; and then, suddenly tired, he turned and sat down.

  VII

  Before with decorous words the meeting was adjourned, Elder Pittridge slipped out by a side door and away, unwilling now to face anyone. He came into the cool sweetness of the night and at a rapid stride, avoiding any who might have followed him, moved off. He did not know which way he took. The soft air was grateful on his brow. He walked at random, headlong.

  He walked till a carriage overtook him and passed him and then pulled up, and when he came abreast of it, Jenny spoke to him.

  ‘Line!’

  He stopped and saw her, Pat Tierney on the box. He rubbed his hand across his eyes; and she said:

  ‘Line, I tried to find you after the meeting. Will is sick. He wants you to come and see him. Can you come?’ And when he hesitated, she said: ‘Get in.’

  He obeyed her silently, his pulses thrumming. He sat beside her, and Pat lifted the horses to a trot. He felt her close to him, yet it was as though she were far away, on the horizon of a world seen redly through hot flames; but after a little she said quietly: ‘You spoke splendidly tonight, Line.’ At her word, he filled his lungs deeply, as though he had held his breath till now. ‘You were fine,’ she told him.

  He did not speak, and she said no more till the carriage stopped at her door. Then she bade the Irishman: ‘Wait, Pat, to take Mr. Pittridge home. He’ll only be a minute here.’

  ‘I will that, ma’am,’ Pat assured her. ‘It’s late, to be sure.’

  But Elder Pittridge did not hear the disapproval in Pat’s tones. He went in with her. In the hall when the door was closed they were alone. She turned to speak to him in her soft voice. ‘You moved me tonight, Line,’ she said, and came near him. ‘You stirred me deeply. I will always remember a word you said. You said: “It is time for passion.” Do you remember?’

  She stood before him and her eyes were coals. He took a blind, groping step; and so, suddenly, she was in his arms, clinging, pressing close and closer as though she could not come close enough to him, her lips devouring his.

  Then from the upper hall Mrs. McGaw, unseen, called down: ‘Is that you, Mrs. Evered?’

  Instantly, though their eyes still grappled, she was free, stepping back from him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in her usual calm, unshaken tones; and he wondered at her composure after that embrace which had left him shaken and helpless. ‘And I’ve brought Uncle Line to see Will. We’re coming right up.’

  She took one step, expecting him to follow; and then, smiling because for this moment he could not move, she returned to catch his hand and lead him toward the stairs.

  VIII

  Will was restless and miserable, and Mrs. McGaw said Doctor Mason had been here and thought the youngster was developing measles. ‘He left some Indian Vegetable Pills for him,’ she said, ‘and some manna.’

  Jenny asked what this was, and she explained: ‘Doctor says it’s like spruce gum, comes off an ash tree in Europe somewhere. He says it’s a de—’ She hesitated. ‘Well, it was do-something or other, but he says it will keep Will’s throat from getting too sore. And the pills will keep his fever down.’ Elder Pittridge stayed only a few minutes, since Pat was waiting with the carriage to take him back to town. In the carriage, staring blindly at Pat’s broad shoulders, he licked his lips that were still dry and bruised from the hot pressure of hers upon them; and convulsions shook him, deep shudders that seemed to loose his tendons from the bones, that left his joints weak and his flesh fibreless, as though at a touch his whole body might fall apart into its component and useless parts. Yet this body of his over which he had no longer any firm control, so that when he alighted at his own door he stumbled and almost fell, was nevertheless a vessel which contained boiling forces so violent it seemed impossible any man could endure them and survive. He slept not at all that night, moved haggardly the next day and the next; but Will had made him promise to come soon again and at last reluctantly he did so, walking out to the house with many hesitations, vowing he must not see Jenny, praying for strength to stay away from her, yet still trudging helplessly toward where she waited.

  But the days that followed lulled him into a false security. Jenny met him easily and in a completely impersonal fashion which denied all recollection of that moment he could never forget. The two younger boys caught the measles almost at once, and
Jenny nursed the three with a tireless tenderness, so Elder Pittridge saw her only with them. Dan fell ill last of all, when the others were nearly recovered, and he was sicker than the others had been; but by mid-June he too was convalescing.

  When he began to be better every day, Jenny sent Mrs. McGaw—who had exhausted herself in caring for the children—to visit her daughter in Brewer and rest awhile, and Ruth assumed the household cares while Jenny spent every hour with Dan. Elder Pittridge—his misgivings reawakening as the household returned to something like a normal routine—went to see them not so often now; but one morning he met Jenny as she emerged from a consultation with Miss Robinson, the tailoress, and he asked how Dan was.

  ‘He’s missed you,’ she said. ‘Why not come out and cheer him up this afternoon?’

  ‘Is he still in bed?’

  ‘Yes.’ She added: ‘You know Meg insisted on having the other three down to Searsport for a visit, as soon as they could stand the trip; so I’ve only Dan to take care of now, but I’m keeping him quiet for a few days longer. Won’t you come this afternoon, early?’

  He hesitated, torn and distracted. ‘I’m not sure I can,’ he said in a low tone, evasively, fighting to control his voice.

  She held his eyes. ‘I’ve heard from John,’ she told him quietly. ‘He’ll be home tomorrow; but Dan and I would like to see you today. Do come?’

  There was a strong insistence in her tone, but he scarce heard her. John would come home tomorrow! That fact offered at once a promise of security against this thing which threatened to engulf him and an end to those dreams which at once attracted and repelled him. Yet since Dan was still at the house, he could safely go today. He submitted. ‘I will, then,’ he agreed.

  She turned away, almost hurriedly, as though fearing he would change his mind; and he watched her, thinking he had never noticed how gracefully she walked, suddenly conscious as he looked after her now of all the coordinated parts of her, the perfect articulation of her joints, the controlled tensions and relaxings of her muscles. His palms were moist, his throat throbbing. When she disappeared, he roused like a man half asleep, moving on about his own concerns.

  But after dinner he turned out Main Street to go to her. He had reached the corner of Adams Street when he saw her carriage approaching with Pat on the box; and in the seats behind were not only Ruth and her children but also Dan, wrapped snug in blankets, tucked and warm. Elder Pittridge hailed them, and when Pat pulled up he said:

  ‘Well, Dan, you’re well again!’

  ‘Yes,’ Dan told him gleefully. ‘And now I’m going down to Searsport to visit Aunt Meg. We’re all going, Pat and everybody except mother. She’s going to stay at home and rest and bring father down tomorrow.’

  Line’s fists clenched at his sides. ‘Why, fine!’ he assented. ‘Give my love to Aunt Meg.’

  He stepped back as the carriage moved on; and he stood a moment, watching it out of sight, thinking now with perfect clarity and certainty. Jenny was alone in the big house; alone, expecting him, awaiting him. And—knowing he was coming—she had sent Dan away; had sent everyone away.

  Yet—perhaps this decision to send Dan to Searsport was a sudden one. Perhaps if he went to her she would say: ‘I’m sorry. Dan was so much better that I sent him down to Meg’s. Too bad you walked so far for nothing.’ But if that were the case, she would have bidden Pat tell him not to come; and Pat had given him no such message.

  So she was waiting for him!

  He knew in his heart that this was the moment of decision, to go back or to go on. To go on to what irrevocable end? He refused to look so far as in sudden madness he continued more swiftly now upon his way. He thought remotely of the swine possessed of devils racing toward the precipice, plunging headlong to their own destruction. He was like them, as lost and mad as they, but the thought did not slow his pace. If there were devils in him, he could fight them now no more.

  When he came to the door, she opened it. She was slender and small, like a child, in a white dress buttoned down the front, fitting snugly from throat to slim waist; and her hair was soft above her brow. She smiled and said: ‘Come in, Line.’ and when the door was closed she said: ‘Dan’s waiting for you.’ She turned at once away.

  Without speaking, accepting her guidance, letting her determine the event, he followed her up the stairs. She did not hurry. There was again in her walk that catlike, smooth perfection of movement which he had seen for the first time a few hours before. At the head of the stair she said softly:

  ‘He’s here in my room.’

  She led the way, opened the door and stood aside to let him pass and then closed the door and leaned her shoulders against it, her hands behind her back. His eyes swept the empty room, and then he turned to face her; and she smiled, and those faint inverted crescents on her cheekbones made her seem like a child about to cry. She whispered teasingly: ‘You don’t ask where Dan is?’

  ‘I saw him on his way to Meg’s.’ His voice was hoarse so that he scarce recognized it. ‘I knew he wouldn’t be here!’

  Her cheek burned bright as flame, and he thought it would be hot to touch. ‘You knew!’ she whispered. ‘You knew, as I did!’

  Then with a motion swift as a snake’s striking head, her hand flew to the topmost button at her throat to loose it. An instant later she struck him in the face with both small fists as he caught her in his arms.

  4

  ELDER PITTRIDGE, walking

  back to town late that afternoon, stumbled and wavered like one suddenly struck blind; and he moved with hanging head, unwilling to meet any eye, feeling that the first person he met must see him as he was, a betrayer of his friend, a befouler of the home in which so long he had been a welcome visitor. Jenny in this hour he hated and abhorred, and he vowed never to see her again, swore weakly to himself that he would leave Bangor, go far away, put behind him forever this woman who embodied in her person all the evil iniquities which led men to their dark destruction. In these hours now irrevocably past, which never could be recalled, he had destroyed all that he had wished to make out of his life, all those intangible ideals of decency and self-respect and loyalty and service to which he had clung. He was debased and unclean, would never be clean again; and in a passion of hopeless regret he accepted this fact. He despised Jenny as much as he despised himself. They had been companions in the foulest act of which man and woman were capable, and he not only admitted this, he wished to shout it aloud in abject humiliation; he wished to mortify and to mutilate the flesh which had betrayed him. He thought of self-destruction, thought of it almost hungrily. Such men as he were not fit to live, and the world would be well rid of him, a better place without him. From his earlier debaucheries Elder Pittridge had gone to the other extreme, to a worship of what seemed to him good which was as passionate and frenzied as his previous conduct had been debased and mean. It was the man he had made out of himself, that almost holy man, who judged him now, and not with the stern remoteness of a serene mind but with the merciless cruelty of the Inquisition which damned without recourse.

  He was lost, lost, lost! It was himself he had contaminated and befouled. To think of Jenny now was to provoke in himself waves of actual nausea. But before he came to his own door his thoughts took a new turn and he began to blame John. If John had lived in love and faith and trust with the wife to whom God had joined him, then he himself would never have been tempted to come between those two. It was John who by turning against his wife had thrust Jenny and himself together; and he damned John in his heart, cursing the man with mumbling lips, seizing on this hatred of John as on an anodyne which could help him forget his own crime.

  As for Jenny, he vowed he would never see her again!

  II

  But he forgot that vow. John returned, and urged Elder Pittridge to be one with them as in the past, and the Elder in his thoughts damned John’s eternal soul to hell for leading him thus into temptation. Yet he was already lost, so he had no more to lose; and in an ironic wr
ath he surrendered to John’s cordial friendliness.

  But John after a few weeks at home was often absent, so that at night after the city was asleep, Elder Pittridge could go to Jenny, meeting her in the garden below the house, or with her hand to guide him through the darkened halls slipping secretly up to her room. Again and again he swore to come to her no more, and told her so; and he might have broken free, but she said: ‘If you won’t come to me, Line, I shall come to you.’ And when he argued and pleaded and implored, she said firmly: 1 care for none of that, my dear; and I warn you, I am not to be treated lightly—nor in any other way except as I desire.

  When he said he must go away to Augusta or to Portland, she told him simply: ‘If you do, I shall follow you.’ There was in her none of the regrets which tortured him. Instead of withdrawing in shame and horror from their contacts, she was forever demanding; and sometimes when he cried out in self-condemnation, she watched him with a quizzical smile, her head on one side; and when he was silent she might say: ‘You’re really good, aren’t you, Line? I like making you do things you think are wicked. It torments you so!’

  At such moments she was frightening, but she was not always so composed, and he was sometimes dismayed by the storms which shook her, as though she were being riven by forces beyond control. Once, lying appeased at last in his arms, she began to weep uncontrollably, sobbing aloud, crying: ‘Oh, Line, I’m not like this really! What makes me so? What makes me so?’ And she protested in a tragic despair: “I’m a good woman, Line! You know I am! Oh, why, dear God, why?’