The Wide House

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Laurie, Jane reported, though broken-hearted that she could not be present at her brother’s wedding, sent her love and regards and regrets. Janie confided to Mrs. Cummings, with pride, that Laurie was deeply engaged in her musical studies, and must do an enormous quantity of work in order to be permitted to study in Europe the next summer.

  No gentleman at that wedding was so handsome, so gay, so full of laughter and fascination as the best man, Bertie Cauder. The young ladies were devastated by him. Miss Agnes Clayton, niece of Mrs. Cummings, looked at him with swimming and swooning eyes, and was heard to sigh frequently. In black broadcloth, with exquisite ruffles and a flowered waistcoat, his tall and comely form set him apart as a resplendent figure, and his manners were so gallant, so courteous, so flattering and attentive and affectionate, that even the bellicose elder matrons succumbed to his charm. He was very affectionate with Robbie, and, after the ceremony, was seen to stay very close to him, his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  It was a very happy wedding. At eight o’clock the bride and her groom departed for the station amid great confusion, congratulations, laughter and love. They were to pass their honeymoon in New York, and it was there that they would meet Laurie and spend some time with her.

  No one was a spectator at the quiet leave-taking between Robbie and his brother. But Robbie had manipulated matters so that he had a few last words with Bertie in the warm dim hall near the staircase. Bertie had come willingly enough. The brothers stood near the newel-post lamp, and looked at each other, Robbie pale and grave, Bertie, as always, with his fixed and unreadable smile. The confused uproar of the revelry came to them from the distant parlors.

  It was unlike Robbie to be so despairingly persistent. He faced his brother. A sudden silence fell between them.

  Then Robbie, clearing his throat, said softly: “I’d like to know you’ll be all right, Bertie. I’d like to know that, when I’m away.”

  “Oh, you mustn’t worry! I shall do splendidly,” said Bertie. He pressed his brother’s shoulder affectionately. But Robbie’s small and reticent face darkened. He shrugged a little. He was a fool. He ought to be convinced now that nothing was of any use at all. But still he persisted.

  “Take care of yourself. We’ll have some fine talks when I return.”

  “Of course!” said Bertie with enthusiasm. “We mustn’t abandon our walks together, either.”

  “When it’s spring, well walk again along the Canadian shore, and see your friend, Captain Willoughby.”

  “Good old Joe,” assented Bertie, with affection.

  “And Frenchman’s Creek,” suggested Robbie, with despair.

  Bertie nodded with bright gaiety. “We mustn’t forget our fishing,” he said.

  Again there was silence between them. Bertie looked down at his brother, and his face changed a little. His hand dropped from Robbie’s shoulder. A sudden strange expression glimmered in his eyes, compassionate but retreating.

  “Be happy, Robbie,” he said gently. Was there warning, pleading, in his warm voice? Robbie listened with painful and moved attention. “Be happy,” Bertie repeated, and his tone was oddly urgent. “You have a new life. It is yours, all yours. You must think of nothing else. Promise me that.”

  “I can’t cut off my old life, as if it had never existed,” said Robbie, through a constricted throat. He touched his brother’s sleeve. But Bertie, with an impulsive if gentle movement, stepped back a pace or two. Across that space he regarded Robbie as from an immense and impassable distance.

  “You must, you must,” he said. “There must be nothing else. Remember Lot’s wife. She turned to salt when she looked back.” He smiled; his handsome white teeth glistened in the dim lamplight. “Don’t look back, Robbie. You must not.”

  He lifted his hand, touched his forehead with a gay salute, turned on his heel, and was gone.

  Robbie stayed alone for several long moments after Bertie had returned to the festivities. All at once he felt a complete and overwhelming desolation and loneliness such as he had never experienced before in all his life. He could taste the dryness of his loneliness in his mouth, the sick dull ache of bereavement and melancholy in his heart. He was pervaded with despair. All about him was silent and empty wasteland, with not even a shadow to break its bleak and endless expanse. No voice could penetrate there, no movement.

  He caught the newel post in a shaking hand. His grief was more than he could bear, and his loneliness. Never had he felt so solitary, so abandoned, so set adrift in a universe without the smallest echo.

  In those moments, he did not think of his bride.

  CHAPTER 50

  Young Mrs. Robbie looked with absent approval into her mirror, and lifted her head to allow her thick weight of chestnut curls to drop in a shining mass on her, shoulders. She scrutinized the flushed oval of her pretty face, and brought a smile to her mobile red lips so that dimples twinkled and sparkled about them. Her brown eyes, so lively and lustrous, gazed back at her solemnly, in spite of the smile. All at once she was amused at this dainty scrutiny, and she laughed to herself. She began to brush her hair.

  Her pale-blue velvet dressing robe lay in folds over her slim thighs and knees, lay in a glimmering heap about her feet. It flowed and brightened with her movements. Reflected in the mirror she could see the gilt, plush, molded plaster, crystal, crimson and spacious walls of the bedroom of the bridal suite of the luxurious hotel. Sunlight lay on the wide but shallow windowsills, which looked out upon Fifth Avenue. The crimson velvet curtains, looped in blue cords and gold fringe, moved a little in the sharp wind which penetrated under the windows. A fire crackled in scarlet warmth on the black marble of the hearth. It was scented, quiet and peaceful in that room, the silence broken only by the soft swish of Mrs. Robbie’s industrious brush, and the rustling of Robbie’s newspaper.

  Slowly the brush began to pause in its labors, and finally ceased. Now it gleamed in the motionless little white hand. Mrs. Robbie’s smiling face became grave and still. She could see her husband in the mirror, as he sat near the window, his neat black knees crossed, his polished boots shining, his head almost obscured by the sheets of the Journal. He turned a page. His face had its usual reserved pallor. His small features were quiet and intent.

  Mrs. Robbie thought: I love him. No one can tell how much I love him. I’ve always loved him. He is my heart, my soul. I’ve never told anyone. I can never tell him. He is shut away from me. Forever. Why? Oh, won’t someone please tell me why?

  Robbie turned another page, and soberly scanned it. A coal popped on the fire. Muted traffic sounds penetrated the quiet. The brush lay motionless in the girl’s hand.

  Alice spoke in her sweet low voice: Robbie.”

  He glanced at her blue back, and smiled affectionately. “Yes, my love.” He saw her young pretty face in the mirror, so serious now, so mature.

  “Robbie,” she said, and though her voice was still low, it was penetrating, “do you love me?”

  He raised his tilted black brows as if with fond amusement. “Of course. Of course! What a silly, dear little question! Didn’t I marry you?”

  She lifted her hand and began to brush her hair again. Her hand was trembling. She did not speak for a moment or two, during which he watched her with that reserved amusement of his. Yet he felt some pricking of uneasiness. She put down her brush, and suddenly turned on the padded seat and faced him. The bright flush had gone from her smooth cheeks. Her brown eyes were somber, clear as brown water, but unsmiling. Robbie dropped his newspaper and looked at her in silence.

  “Robbie,” she said, “do you know you’ve never said to me: ‘I love you’?”

  He tried to smile lightly. “Was it necessary? Or am I a boor? I thought a young lady understood all that when a gentleman asked for her hand.”

  She did not speak. Her eyes never left his face. There were no dimples now about her mouth, which trembled at the corners.

  She shook her head. “No, I did not ‘understand.’ I didn’t t
hink of it, I must confess. Until we were married. Until we came here.”

  “Then, why now? Have I been remiss?”

  She shook her head again. He said: “You are a darling little child.”

  She lifted her hand listlessly. “Please, Robbie. There is something strange—It is true that I’ve never been married before. But something tells me there is a kind of strangeness, an incompleteness.”

  She waited impatiently for him to smile again. But he did not. He had dropped his head and was looking at his boots. Then he said softly: “My dear. My very dear. You mustn’t be alarmed. It is just my temperament. I’m not very demonstrative, you know. You must take me as I am.”

  Once again her hand moved in a tired and listless gesture. “I know all that about you, Robbie. I’ve never expected, or even wanted, gallantry from you. You are so much like Papa. He isn’t gallant, either. He and Mama are such happy friends, and love each other so, though I’ve never seen them exchange a kiss, or say a word of endearment in anyone’s presence. It isn’t that, Robbie, you see. Yet, I’ve always known how Mama and Papa love each other. There is something one can sense, something warm and close and dear.” Her mouth quivered. But her eyes remained dry and steadfast, though in them there was a desperate pleading for reassurance.

  Then Robbie said, so low that she could hardly hear: “You must give me time, my darling.”

  “Time?” she murmured. And then her heart began to beat with a loud sick fear, a terrible plunging. “Time?” she repeated. “Why, Robbie?”

  He sighed. The papers slipped from his knees to the floor. He tried to smile, whimsically. He said: “I am a new husband, you know. We must grow together. Those things don’t happen overnight. They take years of growth.”

  She caught the edge of the blue bench in clenched fingers. “Robbie,” she said, “why did you marry me?”

  She was very white, but her gaze did not falter or dim. Its pure brownness shone upon him from its strained sockets.

  He stood up, and she had the dreadful sensation that he was about to leave her. Yet he did not move. He said, in slow and measured tones: “I married you because I wanted you, Alice. I love you as much as it is possible for me to love—anyone.”

  She shook her head, her eyes never leaving him. “No, Robbie,” she said, gently, almost meditatively, “you don’t love me. Not really. You try to. You try so hard. I can feel you trying. You want to love me. But something stops you. Something stops you from loving me as much as you wish. What is it, Robbie?”

  He opened his mouth to speak. She saw the pale parting of his lips. But no sound came from them. He leaned his head against the glass of the window, his back to her now. He said quietly: “You are fanciful, Alice. Your female temperament demands too much, and is too imaginative.”

  She said: “You wanted me because you thought that was an escape—from something. What is that ‘something,’ Robbie?”

  When he did not answer, she was impelled to start to her feet, the long sick trembling running over her slight body. Her throat was dry; her eyes burned. She was full of terror.

  “Robbie! I am only nineteen, but I understand so many things! I feel them in my heart, Robbie. That is why I must ask you: What is the ‘something,’ or the somebody, that keeps you from me?”

  He turned to her slowly, against his will. She stood across the room from him, like a small and slender shaft of icy blue, her hair in disorder upon her shoulders, her eyes too bright, too desperate. He wanted to go to her. Something in him urged him to rush to her, to hold her in his arms, to hide those terrified young eyes against his mouth. But he could not. He felt as if a ton of stone had fallen upon him, had petrified him.

  “Was there someone you loved before me, Robbie?” she asked, her voice clear and unshaking. “Someone you can’t forget?”

  He said, through parched lips: “My darling. I never loved any woman before. Believe me. You do believe me?”

  She did not answer for several long moments. Her eyes burned into his. Then she turned her head aside. “Yes, Robbie. I do believe you. But are you telling me you can’t love me with all your heart—?”

  His voice came like a dry and painful rustle. “Perhaps it isn’t in me to love anyone ‘with all my heart.’ I don’t know. Perhaps I’m not made that way, Alice. You must take me as I am. I will do my best for you. You deserve that. You are the sweetest thing. There was never anyone like you.”

  He paused. From her hanging head the curls dropped and flowed, half concealing her face.

  “You see,” he said pleadingly, holding out his hands to her, “I’ve been so absorbed in many things. There was my study, my work. And my brother, Bertie. I’ve had to take care of him.” And then as he spoke that name, he felt ill and hideously shaken. He leaned against the window.

  Slowly, Alice raised her head. Her eyes were enormous, and very still.

  Then, all through her swept the dreadful knowledge, flooding her sensitive perception without the aid of her shattered reason. Her eyes widened, looked beyond the room, beyond New York, back to Grandeville, through the years she had known and loved Robbie. Bertie. Bertie was beside him, always. Bertie, laughing, drinking, affectionate. Bertie, full of gaiety, never demanding, even a little affectionately bored by Robbie’s absorption in him, even sometimes evading him. “The red and black of it,” they had been called, by observant Grandeville citizens. Robbie rarely alone, except when he called at the Cummings’ mansion, and often, not even then. Always, always Bertie. Why hadn’t she known, before? She had known, in a way, and had been tenderly touched by this devotion in so cola and reserved a man. She had thought it admirable, a lovely thing.

  Her lips felt like ice, and swollen. She moistened them. “Robbie, it’s Bertie, isn’t it?”

  He still leaned against the window, but she felt his sudden rigidity. They looked across the room at each other again, intently. Then Robbie said: “Yes. I suppose so. We have been very close, Alice.” He spoke simply, haltingly. “I don’t believe I cared for anyone in the family, but Bertie. We were friends. I—I have had to take care of him, since we were children. He was, in a way, my charge. No one understood him but me, not even my mother, who adored him. And even I never understood. No one can understand him. I—I’ve had my glimpses, and they were quite terrible. He is like a child. Someone had to take care of him. Perhaps—Alice, perhaps I am as I am because I’m still not free from looking after Bertie.”

  He waited. She did not speak, but only looked at him desolately.

  Then he cried out, the words torn from him forcibly: “I’ll never be free until he dies!”

  She stared at him for a long time.

  And then there was a sudden huge breaking in her heart, a huge swelling and flooding, a great thunder. Her love rose up in her like a wave, crushing her, filling her, and it was mingled with an awful compassion, a passion to protect, to hide, to shelter and save him.

  She flung out her arms and ran to him. She wound her arms about his neck, pressing her young body to his, drawing down his head to her breast. She held him as a mother holds a threatened child, crooning to him in wordless, sobbing murmurs. She kissed him, over and over.

  He put his arms about her. He pressed his head to her breast, her warm young shoulder. She felt his tiredness, his loneliness, his despair.

  But there was a triumphant, stubborn joy in her now. She looked over his head at the sunlit window. She smiled.

  I can wait, she thought. He needs me so terribly, my darling, my darling.

  BOOK THREE

  O MORNING STAR!

  CHAPTER 51

  On December 20th, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, and though the heaviest apprehension and gloom overspread many of the other States, the spontaneous celebration in South Carolina was an embarrassing demonstration that the secession was by popular will. Bedeviled, harassed and exhorted for years by the Northern States, the South looked defiantly towards Washington and muttered of other secessions. Temporarily, at least, t
he threat of bankruptcy which had hovered over the cotton planters with the heightening tempo of Abolitionism in the North, passed away, and a general air of optimistic vitality and quickening pervaded the South. Many believed there would be no war, but that the North would accede to the sovereign will of those States which decided to leave the Union, as guaranteed by the Constitution.

  “Yes,” remarked Father Houlihan, sadly, “the South has the ‘right’ to leave the Union, and its freedom to decide whether or not it owes allegiance to the central Government. But by the exercise of this ‘right’ the South has jeopardized the whole of America, perhaps forever.”

  To the consternation, dismay and despair of thinking men, not only in the North, but in the South, other States followed the example of South Carolina in a majestic and white-lipped parade. One by one the fair and flowery States rose and turned their faces from Washington, and in the White House Mr. Lincoln’s kind and ugly face darkened with hopelessness even while his mouth set with passionate determination. Out of the House of America went the loveliest daughters, out into danger, out into threat and a terrible future, while Europe watched, smiling and malignant. The Constitution of the United States was the wide door through which the daughters departed, and near that door stood Abraham Lincoln, in prayer. He waited in silence; he said nothing as yet. But he watched the emptying of his House. And he looked at Europe.

  “It was an evil day for the people when that man was elected President,” said Stuart, desperately concerned.

  “It is an evil day for the people when God does not raise up a leader in their desperate hour,” replied Father Houlihan sternly.

  The Southern senators left Washington. The Southern States seized the property of the United States in their respective States. Arsenals and forts were seized. Though war was not yet threatened, a huge and mysterious supply of arms appeared, and was distributed. Stuart, remembering a certain dark-eyed and laughing man, Raoul Bouchard, felt a burning in his cheeks and a sickness in his heart. Army stores and other property were confiscated at San Antonio, and the navy yards at Norfolk and Pensacola passed into “Southern” hands.