Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Moreover, Susie was Morton’s sister.

  The whippoorwill’s cry sounded again through the soft June night. Vivian came quickly down the garden path between the bordering beds of sweet alyssum and mignonette. A dew-wet rose brushed against her hand. She broke it off, pricking her fingers, and hastily fastened it in the bosom of her white frock.

  Large old lilac bushes hung over the dividing fence, a thick mass of honeysuckle climbed up by the gate and mingled with them, spreading over to a pear tree on the Lane side. In this fragrant, hidden corner was a rough seat, and from it a boy’s hand reached out and seized the girl’s, drawing her down beside him. She drew away from him as far as the seat allowed.

  “Oh Morton!” she said. “What have you done?”

  Morton was sulky.

  “Now Vivian, are you down on me too? I thought I had one friend.”

  “You ought to tell me,” she said more gently. “How can I be your friend if I don’t know the facts? They are saying perfectly awful things.”

  “Who are?”

  “Why — the Foote girls — everybody.”

  “Oh those old maids aren’t everybody, I assure you. You see, Vivian, you live right here in this old oyster of a town — and you make mountains out of molehills like everybody else. A girl of your intelligence ought to know better.”

  She drew a great breath of relief. “Then you haven’t — done it?”

  “Done what? What’s all this mysterious talk anyhow? The prisoner has a right to know what he’s charged with before he commits himself.”

  The girl was silent, finding it difficult to begin.

  “Well, out with it. What do they say I did?” He picked up a long dry twig and broke it, gradually, into tiny, half-inch bits.

  “They say you — went to the city — with a lot of the worst boys in college — —”

  “Well? Many persons go to the city every day. That’s no crime, surely. As for ‘the worst boys in college,’” — he laughed scornfully— “I suppose those old ladies think if a fellow smokes a cigarette or says ‘darn’ he’s a tough. They’re mighty nice fellows, that bunch — most of ‘em. Got some ginger in ‘em, that’s all. What else?”

  “They say — you drank.”

  “O ho! Said I got drunk, I warrant! Well — we did have a skate on that time, I admit!” And he laughed as if this charge were but a familiar joke.

  “Why Morton Elder! I think it is a — disgrace!”

  “Pshaw, Vivian! — You ought to have more sense. All the fellows get gay once in a while. A college isn’t a young ladies’ seminary.”

  He reached out and got hold of her hand again, but she drew it away.

  “There was something else,” she said.

  “What was it?” he questioned sharply. “What did they say?”

  But she would not satisfy him — perhaps could not.

  “I should think you’d be ashamed, to make your aunt so much trouble. They said you were suspended — or — expelled!”

  He shrugged his big shoulders and threw away the handful of broken twigs.

  “That’s true enough — I might as well admit that.”

  “Oh, Morton! — I didn’t believe it. Expelled!”

  “Yes, expelled — turned down — thrown out — fired! And I’m glad of it.” He leaned back against the fence and whistled very softly through his teeth.

  “Sh! Sh!” she urged. “Please!”

  He was quiet.

  “But Morton — what are you going to do? — Won’t it spoil your career?”

  “No, my dear little girl, it will not!” said he. “On the contrary, it will be the making of me. I tell you, Vivian, I’m sick to death of this town of maiden ladies — and ‘good family men.’ I’m sick of being fussed over for ever and ever, and having wristers and mufflers knitted for me — and being told to put on my rubbers! There’s no fun in this old clamshell — this kitchen-midden of a town — and I’m going to quit it.”

  He stood up and stretched his long arms. “I’m going to quit it for good and all.”

  The girl sat still, her hands gripping the seat on either side.

  “Where are you going?” she asked in a low voice.

  “I’m going west — clear out west. I’ve been talking with Aunt Rella about it. Dr. Bellair’ll help me to a job, she thinks. She’s awful cut up, of course. I’m sorry she feels bad — but she needn’t, I tell her. I shall do better there than I ever should have here. I know a fellow that left college — his father failed — and he went into business and made two thousand dollars in a year. I always wanted to take up business — you know that!”

  She knew it — he had talked of it freely before they had argued and persuaded him into the college life. She knew, too, how his aunt’s hopes all centered in him, and in his academic honors and future professional life. “Business,” to his aunt’s mind, was a necessary evil, which could at best be undertaken only after a “liberal education.”

  “When are you going,” she asked at length.

  “Right off — to-morrow.”

  She gave a little gasp.

  “That’s what I was whippoorwilling about — I knew I’d get no other chance to talk to you — I wanted to say good-by, you know.”

  The girl sat silent, struggling not to cry. He dropped beside her, stole an arm about her waist, and felt her tremble.

  “Now, Viva, don’t you go and cry! I’m sorry — I really am sorry — to make you feel bad.”

  This was too much for her, and she sobbed frankly.

  “Oh, Morton! How could you! How could you! — And now you’ve got to go away!”

  “There now — don’t cry — sh! — they’ll hear you.”

  She did hush at that.

  “And don’t feel so bad — I’ll come back some time — to see you.”

  “No, you won’t!” she answered with sudden fierceness. “You’ll just go — and stay — and I never shall see you again!”

  He drew her closer to him. “And do you care — so much — Viva?”

  “Of course, I care!” she said, “Haven’t we always been friends, the best of friends?”

  “Yes — you and Aunt Rella have been about all I had,” he admitted with a cheerful laugh. “I hope I’ll make more friends out yonder. But Viva,” — his hand pressed closer— “is it only — friends?”

  She took fright at once and drew away from him. “You mustn’t do that, Morton!”

  “Do what?” A shaft of moonlight shone on his teasing face. “What am I doing?” he said.

  It is difficult — it is well nigh impossible — for a girl to put a name to certain small cuddlings not in themselves terrifying, nor even unpleasant, but which she obscurely feels to be wrong.

  Viva flushed and was silent — he could see the rich color flood her face.

  “Come now — don’t be hard on a fellow!” he urged. “I shan’t see you again in ever so long. You’ll forget all about me before a year’s over.”

  She shook her head, still silent.

  “Won’t you speak to me — Viva?”

  “I wish — —” She could not find the words she wanted. “Oh, I wish you — wouldn’t!”

  “Wouldn’t what, Girlie? Wouldn’t go away? Sorry to disoblige — but I have to. There’s no place for me here.”

  The girl felt the sad truth of that.

  “Aunt Rella will get used to it after a while. I’ll write to her — I’ll make lots of money — and come back in a few years — astonish you all! — Meanwhile — kiss me good-by, Viva!”

  She drew back shyly. She had never kissed him. She had never in her life kissed any man younger than an uncle.

  “No, Morton — you mustn’t — —” She shrank away into the shadow.

  But, there was no great distance to shrink to, and his strong arms soon drew her close again.

  “Suppose you never see me again,” he said. “Then you’ll wish you hadn’t been so stiff about it.”

  She thought of this dread
possibility with a sudden chill of horror, and while she hesitated, he took her face between her hands and kissed her on the mouth.

  Steps were heard coming down the path.

  “They’re on,” he said with a little laugh. “Good-by, Viva!”

  He vaulted the fence and was gone.

  “What are you doing here, Vivian?” demanded her father.

  “I was saying good-by to Morton,” she answered with a sob.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself — philandering out here in the middle of the night with that scapegrace! Come in the house and go to bed at once — it’s ten o’clock.”

  Bowing to this confused but almost equally incriminating chronology, she followed him in, meekly enough as to her outward seeming, but inwardly in a state of stormy tumult.

  She had been kissed!

  Her father’s stiff back before her could not blot out the radiant, melting moonlight, the rich sweetness of the flowers, the tender, soft, June night.

  “You go to bed,” said he once more. “I’m ashamed of you.”

  “Yes, father,” she answered.

  Her little room, when at last she was safely in it and had shut the door and put a chair against it — she had no key — seemed somehow changed.

  She lit the lamp and stood looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were star-bright. Her cheeks flamed softly. Her mouth looked guilty and yet glad.

  She put the light out and went to the window, kneeling there, leaning out in the fragrant stillness, trying to arrange in her mind this mixture of grief, disapproval, shame and triumph.

  When the Episcopal church clock struck eleven, she went to bed in guilty haste, but not to sleep.

  For a long time she lay there watching the changing play of moonlight on the floor.

  She felt almost as if she were married.

  CHAPTER II.

  BAINVILLE EFFECTS.

  Lockstep, handcuffs, ankle-ball-and-chain,

  Dulltoil and dreary food and drink;

  Small cell, cold cell, narrow bed and hard;

  High wall, thick wall, window iron-barred;

  Stone-paved, stone-pent little prison yard —

  Young hearts weary of monotony and pain,

  Young hearts weary of reiterant refrain:

  “They say — they do — what will people think?”

  At the two front windows of their rather crowded little parlor sat Miss Rebecca and Miss Josie Foote, Miss Sallie being out on a foraging expedition — marketing, as it were, among their neighbors to collect fresh food for thought.

  A tall, slender girl in brown passed on the opposite walk.

  “I should think Vivian Lane would get tired of wearing brown,” said Miss Rebecca.

  “I don’t know why she should,” her sister promptly protested, “it’s a good enough wearing color, and becoming to her.”

  “She could afford to have more variety,” said Miss Rebecca. “The Lanes are mean enough about some things, but I know they’d like to have her dress better. She’ll never get married in the world.”

  “I don’t know why not. She’s only twenty-five — and good-looking.”

  “Good-looking! That’s not everything. Plenty of girls marry that are not good-looking — and plenty of good-looking girls stay single.”

  “Plenty of homely ones, too. Rebecca,” said Miss Josie, with meaning. Miss Rebecca certainly was not handsome. “Going to the library, of course!” she pursued presently. “That girl reads all the time.”

  “So does her grandmother. I see her going and coming from that library every day almost.”

  “Oh, well — she reads stories and things like that. Sallie goes pretty often and she notices. We use that library enough, goodness knows, but they are there every day. Vivian Lane reads the queerest things — doctor’s books and works on pedagoggy.”

  “Godgy,” said Miss Rebecca, “not goggy.” And as her sister ignored this correction, she continued: “They might as well have let her go to college when she was so set on it.”

  “College! I don’t believe she’d have learned as much in any college, from what I hear of ‘em, as she has in all this time at home.” The Foote girls had never entertained a high opinion of extensive culture.

  “I don’t see any use in a girl’s studying so much,” said Miss Rebecca with decision.

  “Nor I,” agreed Miss Josie. “Men don’t like learned women.”

  “They don’t seem to always like those that aren’t learned, either,” remarked Miss Rebecca with a pleasant sense of retribution for that remark about “homely ones.”

  The tall girl in brown had seen the two faces at the windows opposite, and had held her shoulders a little straighter as she turned the corner.

  “Nine years this Summer since Morton Elder went West,” murmured Miss Josie, reminiscently. “I shouldn’t wonder if Vivian had stayed single on his account.”

  “Nonsense!” her sister answered sharply. “She’s not that kind. She’s not popular with men, that’s all. She’s too intellectual.”

  “She ought to be in the library instead of Sue Elder,” Miss Rebecca suggested. “She’s far more competent. Sue’s a feather-headed little thing.”

  “She seems to give satisfaction so far. If the trustees are pleased with her, there’s no reason for you to complain that I see,” said Miss Rebecca with decision.

  * * * * *

  Vivian Lane waited at the library desk with an armful of books to take home. She had her card, her mother’s and her father’s — all utilized. Her grandmother kept her own card — and her own counsel.

  The pretty assistant librarian, withdrawing herself with some emphasis from the unnecessary questions of a too gallant old gentleman, came to attend her.

  “You have got a load,” she said, scribbling complex figures with one end of her hammer-headed pencil, and stamping violet dates with the other. She whisked out the pale blue slips from the lid pockets, dropped them into their proper openings in the desk and inserted the cards in their stead with delicate precision.

  “Can’t you wait a bit and go home with me?” she asked. “I’ll help you carry them.”

  “No, thanks. I’m not going right home.”

  “You’re going to see your Saint — I know!” said Miss Susie, tossing her bright head. “I’m jealous, and you know it.”

  “Don’t be a goose, Susie! You know you’re my very best friend, but — she’s different.”

  “I should think she was different!” Susie sharply agreed. “And you’ve been ‘different’ ever since she came.”

  “I hope so,” said Vivian gravely. “Mrs. St. Cloud brings out one’s very best and highest. I wish you liked her better, Susie.”

  “I like you,” Susie answered. “You bring out my ‘best and highest’ — if I’ve got any. She don’t. She’s like a lovely, faint, bright — bubble! I want to prick it!”

  Vivian smiled down upon her.

  “You bad little mouse!” she said. “Come, give me the books.”

  “Leave them with me, and I’ll bring them in the car.” Susie looked anxious to make amends for her bit of blasphemy.

  “All right, dear. Thank you. I’ll be home by that time, probably.”

  * * * * *

  In the street she stopped before a little shop where papers and magazines were sold.

  “I believe Father’d like the new Centurion,” she said to herself, and got it for him, chatting a little with the one-armed man who kept the place. She stopped again at a small florist’s and bought a little bag of bulbs.

  “Your mother’s forgotten about those, I guess,” said Mrs. Crothers, the florist’s wife, “but they’ll do just as well now. Lucky you thought of them before it got too late in the season. Bennie was awfully pleased with that red and blue pencil you gave him, Miss Lane.”

  Vivian walked on. A child ran out suddenly from a gate and seized upon her.

  “Aren’t you coming in to see me — ever?” she demanded.

  Vivi
an stooped and kissed her.

  “Yes, dear, but not to-night. How’s that dear baby getting on?”

  “She’s better,” said the little girl. “Mother said thank you — lots of times. Wait a minute—”

  The child fumbled in Vivian’s coat pocket with a mischievous upward glance, fished out a handful of peanuts, and ran up the path laughing while the tall girl smiled down upon her lovingly.

  A long-legged boy was lounging along the wet sidewalk. Vivian caught up with him and he joined her with eagerness.

  “Good evening, Miss Lane. Say — are you coming to the club to-morrow night?”

  She smiled cordially.

  “Of course I am, Johnny. I wouldn’t disappoint my boys for anything — nor myself, either.”

  They walked on together chatting until, at the minister’s house, she bade him a cheery “good-night.”

  Mrs. St. Cloud was at the window pensively watching the western sky. She saw the girl coming and let her in with a tender, radiant smile — a lovely being in a most unlovely room.

  There was a chill refinement above subdued confusion in that Cambridge-Bainville parlor, where the higher culture of the second Mrs. Williams, superimposed upon the lower culture of the first, as that upon the varying tastes of a combined ancestry, made the place somehow suggestive of excavations at Abydos.

  It was much the kind of parlor Vivian had been accustomed to from childhood, but Mrs. St. Cloud was of a type quite new to her. Clothed in soft, clinging fabrics, always with a misty, veiled effect to them, wearing pale amber, large, dull stones of uncertain shapes, and slender chains that glittered here and there among her scarfs and laces, sinking gracefully among deep cushions, even able to sink gracefully into a common Bainville chair — this beautiful woman had captured the girl’s imagination from the first.

  Clearly known, she was a sister of Mrs. Williams, visiting indefinitely. Vaguely — and very frequently — hinted, her husband had “left her,” and “she did not believe in divorce.” Against her background of dumb patience, he shone darkly forth as A Brute of unknown cruelties. Nothing against him would she ever say, and every young masculine heart yearned to make life brighter to the Ideal Woman, so strangely neglected; also some older ones. Her Young Men’s Bible Class was the pride of Mr. Williams’ heart and joy of such young men as the town possessed; most of Bainville’s boys had gone.