“Why mustn’t I?” he demanded. “Look here — we are full grown, you and I — we know each other. I know that you are unhappy — have been this long time — and you know I love you.”
She dropped her hands to her sides, turned a white tearful face upon him. “You love me?” she said.
“I certainly do! What did you think it was? Come — you are honest, the honestest woman I ever knew — you know I love you, and I almost think you love me — a little.”
He took one of her hands and held it close in both his, drawing her toward him.
“Wait a minute!” she said, rising suddenly. “Just a minute!” She pointed to the clock. “I’ll be back in five minutes — I promise — but I must have that!” And she fled to her room.
He counted those five minutes, refusing to think, and met her, when she returned, with a settled intensity of feeling that was almost terrifying. But she had used her short respite well. Water, cold running water on face and hands, deep breaths of cold night air, a hurried desperate prayer — it was a different woman who came back to him.
“You’ve had your five minutes,” he said grimly. “I’m going to have one — if I die for it.” He took her in his arms again, with passion, not compassion, this time, and kissed her forehead, her shut eyes, her cheeks, then turned her face till the red mouth was near his. “Now — will you give me one?” he demanded.
She opened her eyes, standing quite still in his grasp, and looked at him, with kindness but not love. “No,” was all she said.
He let her go.
He turned without another word to leave.
“Will you go away somewhere and get over it — and must we lose one another altogether?” she said quietly. “Or do you think you can fight it out — and let me keep the very dearest friend I have?”
“Men are not made like that,” he remarked with some bitterness.
“Neither are women,” she answered dryly.
He turned with sudden suspicion — or hope.
“I’ll be perfectly frank with you,” she said. “Not only as to you, but as to what is my real trouble — if you wish it. As to loving you — I really think I should, if I didn’t love Morgan better. And as to tonight, honestly, you nearly swept me off my feet altogether.”
He took a step toward her eagerly.
“No, it was not the real thing,” she told him. “But I was so lonesome, and you were so heavenly kind, and we are just male and female of course, under all our intellects and moralities.”
“But you are lonely, you say.”
“Bitterly. If you can bear it, I’ll tell you about it. If you feel that you have to go away, I shall understand. But if you’ll let me prescribe — how about a five-hundred with the battle door?”
This was a favorite bit of home exercise with Stella. She had loved it in her girlhood, had played it with the boys, with Morgan when he would, and had long since impressed this friend to the service.
He stood and looked at her, his tense expression slowly softening to a smile.
“Well, you are a wonder!” he remarked. “I’ll go you.”
It was rather amusing to see this twentieth-century distressed wife and ardent lover now concentrating eye and hand and all coordinate nerves on a little flying feathered cork and two light-netted battle doors. The thing dropped many times, but each grew grimmer, steadier, and at length they made their score, and stood a little breathless.
“Now if you’d like to wash your hands and ‘lave your fevered brow,’ you have full permission,” she said smiling.
Presently he returned, cooled and steady, remarking briefly: “Fire away!”
She told him the whole matter, blaming herself, or rather, not herself, but the emptiness of women’s lives.
“I don’t really find fault with him at all,” she said. “Not till that night. And even you will admit he had excuse.”
“He had no excuse. No man would ever have excuse for getting tired of you,” he protested.
She smiled on him like a mother.
“Didn’t you ever get tired of any woman?” she asked.
He admitted that he had. “But that was different.”
“Not a bit different. Any man — or any woman for that matter, gets tired of too much — too much of anything. The reason women do not get as tired of men, as a general rule, is that few men are as dependent on one woman’s love as most women are on one man’s.”
In her new wisdom she saw far; but, her wisdom being limited, she did not see all the way. He said nothing to that effect, however, and she went on sadly.
“The trouble now is pride. I can see that. But I can’t bring myself to take the first step — I can’t! Surely — surely he had no right to dream of such a thing.”
“But you say yourself it was a pretty clear case. It did look queer — now didn’t it?” Then an idea struck him. “Look here, I can tell him about the supper part.”
She shook her head. “No. I wanted you to, at first, awfully. But of course you never thought of it. If you told him, and he came around, that way — it wouldn’t be the same thing. He didn’t trust me — in the face of circumstances. Having it explained wouldn’t alter that.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Just wait,” she said. “It is hard, but not impossible. I have my work, you see. That makes all the difference in the world. And I did have you. I’ve been very selfish, I can see that. You see a woman brought up as I was never imagines things.”
“I see,” he said dryly.
“And you’ve been going on getting fonder and fonder of me, and I’ve not helped you one bit!”
“No, I can’t say that you have,” he admitted.
“Well — what are we going to do — really? I do hate to lose you — but I deserve it. If this is going to be such a bother that — that it’ll be too hard for you, perhaps we’d better say good-bye. But I hate to face it.”
There was a silence between them.
“I’m not really blaming you,” he said at length. “I can see just how you felt — and didn’t feel. You didn’t have many lovers, I gather?”
“Never any but Morgan. Oh — there was one who proposed, but he didn’t count.”
“You mean you didn’t care for him?”
She laughed. “I suppose that’s it. But you do count, you see, because I care for you so much.”
He took this like a man. “The situation is practically clear now, at any rate,” he said. “That’s one comfort. I love you. You don’t love me. Small satisfaction to me to think that you ‘might have’! You and Morgan are all right — but for this ridiculous affair of the unspeakable — (though not unspeaking!) Smith. I believe I’ll clear that up whether you allow it or not!” he added doggedly.
“You can’t!” she told him quickly. “You can only account for that supper table — not for my ill-advised histrionics — and the girls being out and all.”
“That’s so,” he agreed. “Looks as if you’d have to just wait, as you say. But I imagine you have lost interest in the drama.”
They both laughed, and in that mutual understanding reached a clearer ground.
“You don’t think,” he added presently, rather hesitatingly, “that — he’s running any risk?”
“Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know!” cried Stella, her worst fear rising irresistibly. “Of course it’s possible. Sometimes I think it’s probable — sometimes I think it’s so! But then Alicia’s almost like a sister to him. I think it’s just habit, and — lonesomeness.”
“Lonesomeness is a very dangerous factor, remember.” He was looking at her with his old expression, humorous, wise and tender.
“I know it — it certainly is. But,” she drew herself up at this, “I will trust my husband even if he did not trust me.”
He admired her, loved her, nonetheless for her determination, and went away presently, walking the long stone miles between her home and his apartment, his lean, nervous hands in his pockets, his head
bent as he faced the wind.
“As soon as she’s out of the woods I’ll take leave of absence,” he determined. “He’ll come around sooner or later — Morgan’s a good chap. And when he does she won’t need me.... But I’m not so easy about the Cousin Alicia end of it, not so sure as she is — and she’s not really sure. Cousin Alicia is a mighty agreeable sort of woman — most men like that cushiony kind. I don’t! But I’ve no earthly objection to scraping acquaintance a little — just to see how the land lies.... May take up my mind.”
CHAPTER 12
Alicia was her gentle, pleasant self to Mr. Tillotson, restful and attractive, as she was to many men. How a woman so genuinely popular had remained so long without remarrying was a puzzle to many. Stella, when she considered it, felt always a sharp revival of the stinging suspicion she so resolutely refused to harbor.
She had always accepted Alicia as part of the family, had been sincerely glad when she came to live in the apartment house, and had mourned with her when her always fragile young husband had died there. That was eight years ago. For the young widow to remain where she was, with the father whose only child had been taken, was perfectly natural; that she should grieve and wait for some years was natural also; but Alicia showed no signs of grieving now.
Why should she wait so long? What was she waiting for? Stella felt at times a sickening sense of being in the way. Before this dreary “coolness” between herself and her husband she had never been really anxious about Alicia. Now she goaded herself into feeling that perhaps Morgan’s happiness depended not on his wife — but on his cousin.
Even an unacknowledged suspicion may add intensity to other feelings, and the pride of that sundered pair held out with stern endurance.
Meanwhile the amiable young widow found her evenings more attractive for the occasional calls of Mr. Tillotson. She had a genuine admiration for “literary people,” and had often expressed the vague wish that she could “write,” the process seeming to her an accomplishment to be learned, like playing the piano. It puzzled her gentle soul that her cousin did not seem to share her pleasure in the increasing frequency of Mr. Tillotson’s visits. She knew Morgan liked him; he had said so to her more than once, and she had perhaps hoped that to have a “real writer” among her friends would make her cousin respect her judgment more than he usually did.
But the more Mr. Tillotson conversed with her on Literature, Art, and Music, all in capitals, the more Morgan surreptitiously yawned, and the earlier he departed.
One rainy evening neither of them had come, nor any other friend. The Colonel dozed over his paper, and Alicia wearied of her embroidery.
“Oh, I remember!” she thought. “They were going to the opera tonight. I’ll go over and borrow a magazine.”
Hedda let her in with as near a smile as her prim blonde countenance easily attained; Mrs. Cushing was a generous giver of pretty bits of adornment.
Alicia made herself at home. It was too late to hope for callers, and she was tired of the company of a sleeping father-in-law. Stella’s room was a change, at least. She sat in various chairs, turned the lights up and down with careful study of effects, looked over the music and played a little air or two. Then gazing about the room with an air of criticism and suggestion, she casually began to rearrange certain small movables, cushions, flowers, chairs.
As she bent over, patting up the sofa cushions, Mrs. Widfield entered and stood watching, a slow color rising in her cheeks.
Alicia heard some movement and turned with a start. “How you frightened me, Stella,” she said with soft reproach. “I thought you were hearing Caruso.”
Mrs. Widfield let her gleaming evening wrap drop from her shoulders. “I was,” she said. “But my head ached, and I took the liberty of coming home. Pray don’t mind me,” she added, trying hard to sound sincerely kind.
“Now don’t be sarcastic, Stella. There was nobody in tonight. Papa’s asleep, as usual, and I just ran over to get a magazine or something. You’ve always told me to make myself perfectly at home here,” she added, not pleased with Stella’s silence. And then, as the silence continued: “I’m sure you are welcome to my place anytime — only you won’t take the trouble to come up!”
“That’s all right, Alicia. I’m cross because my head aches. Yes, I have always told you to make yourself at home here. And you have.”
“Of course I have. I do — anywhere. I love the home feeling.” She sat down among the newly heaped cushions.
“So do I,” agreed Stella, a little wearily, dropping into one of the rearranged chairs.
“I shouldn’t think you would,” Alicia urged, with an air of wise argument, “now that you have all this work to do, and are getting so notorious.”
“Notorious!” Stella opened her eyes wide.
“Well, not exactly notorious. You know what I mean — noted, notable, noteworthy — everybody talking about you.”
Alicia’s attempts to be censorious were apt to be like the scratching of very small kittens, kittens whose claws were not stiff enough to really prick, but Stella was perhaps more sensitive than of old. “What is everybody saying about me?” she demanded.
“Oh, about your success, I mean. What wonderful things you write — and what wonderful prices you get — and — and —— —”
“Well? And what, Cousin Alicia?”
“Of course I wouldn’t tell you if you hadn’t asked me. But you won’t mind, I dare say — you’re so strong. They say it must be rather hard on Mr. Widfield — and that it’s quite evident you don’t mind that.” The kitten quite triumphed. Even soft claws may hurt on tender places.
Stella’s voice was level. “What is so hard on Mr. Widfield?”
“Why — having his wife work, of course!”
“What harm does that do him?”
“Oh, well, I can’t argue, but you know it reflects on him, of course. No man likes to have his wife work. It looks as if he was no good — and couldn’t support her. Or as if he was mean — and wouldn’t.”
Stella seriously meditated on this. She had not had it presented so concretely before.
“I don’t really believe Morgan minds it,” she said at last.
“I’m sure he does.” Alicia had felt this for some months, finding no opportunity to say so. “But it’s none of my business,” she hastily added.
“No,” said Stella, shaking her head with a slow smile. “It is none of your business, Alicia.”
“Well! You needn’t take me up like that!” She listened to a clicking latch. “Here’s Morgan now!” She turned with her soft, engaging smile, adding: “Let’s ask him.”
Mr. Widfield came in, somewhat wearily. He was no longer dreading an overemotional welcome, a pouring affection that he should have to play up to, but he was conscious of a distinct lack in not meeting it.
Alicia, sitting low among the cushions, he did not at first discover, but was surprised to find his wife. He checked a look of pleasure before she saw it, observing: “I thought you were at the opera.”
“I came home because my head ached,” Stella explained. “I am sorry.”
“Sorry for your headache — or for coming home?” There was a forced lightness in his tone, as when one makes conversation with a casual acquaintance.
“For both,” she answered, a little impatiently. “Here’s Alicia.”
“Oh, good evening, cousin.” He was unenthusiastic.
She looked from one to the other with faint mischief in her blue eyes. “Yes, I’m here, as usual. Stella and I have been quarreling.”
“Quarreling?” He refused to be interested, but as she said no more, perfunctorily inquired, “About what?”
“About you,” she answered, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
He looked annoyed, sincerely annoyed, and his wife watched him with a queer nightmarish feeling, as if something dreadful were going to happen and she could not stop it.
“Yes,” Alicia continued easily. “And I’m going to a
sk you to settle the matter.”
“Ask away,” he said carelessly. “I’ll tell the truth.”
But his wife made sudden protest —
“No, don’t Alicia! I especially object.”
Alicia rose and came to her with pretty apologies. “It’s a shame to tease you, dear. And you do look badly. You’d better take that headache right to bed. Good night.”
She was gone, and Morgan turned to his wife with sudden concern.
“Do sit down. You look horribly tired.”
She replied with repressed intensity, examining her close-held fan: “You told me you had a business engagement — you couldn’t go to the opera with me.”
“That was true.” The cold politeness had dominated his voice again. “The man failed me, however. I waited an hour — he sent a messenger boy to say he could not be there. So I came home.”
She said nothing, and he added quietly: “Why do you question me? I do not question you.”
“I beg your pardon.” Her manner was as remote as his own. “Is there anything you wish to question me about? I am perfectly willing to answer you.”
“No. I do not wish to question or discuss. You have a right to your own life.”
“And you to yours. I shall not stand in your way, Morgan.”
There was a strained silence. The faint hidden bell of the clock rang softly. The radiator murmured with a soft shrill sound like distant locusts.
The pain in her woman’s heart drove her to expression. She came to him, her hands outstretched:
“Morgan! Is it too late? Can I do nothing, say nothing, to change it now? I know I have been to blame, dear, but just wait a little longer. Give me time — try me — see how different it will be!”
He stepped back from her, holding up a protesting hand. “Stop, Stella — for heaven’s sake, stop! Have more self-respect! For your own sake — for mine!”
She stood frozen by the harsh bitterness of his tone. She did not know with what fierce pain he misunderstood her honest self-reproach.
“You are right,” she agreed, regaining her poise. “I am sorry I said anything.... Won’t you sit down?” she added presently, as if he were a visitor.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 82
