Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “And that was deceit. What can you say to it?”

  “There is only one thing I could say,” he murmured, looking hopelessly into her eyes, “and that’s of no use.”

  She turned her head away. Her tragedy had fallen to nothing; or rather it had never been. All her remorse, all her suffering, was mere farce now; but his guilt in the matter was the greater. A fierce resentment burned in her heart; she longed to make him feel something of the anguish she had needlessly undergone.

  He sat watching her averted face. “Miss Breen,” he said huskily, “will you let me speak to you?”

  “Oh, you have me in your power,” she answered cruelly. “Say what you like.”

  He did not speak, nor make any motion to do so.

  A foolish, idle curiosity to know what, after all that had happened, he could possibly have to say, stirred within her, but she disdainfully stifled it. They were both so still that a company of seals found it safe to put their heads above water, and approach near enough to examine her with their round soft eyes. She turned from the silly things in contempt that they should even have interested her. She felt that from time to time her companion lifted an anxious glance to the dull heavens. At last the limp sail faintly stirred; it flapped; it filled shallowly; the boat moved. The sail seemed to have had a prescience of the wind before it passed over the smooth water like a shadow.

  When a woman says she never will forgive a man, she always has a condition of forgiveness in her heart. Now that the wind had risen again, “I have no right to forbid you to speak,” she said, as if no silence had elapsed, and she turned round and quietly confronted him; she no longer felt so impatient to escape.

  He did not meet her eye at once, and he seemed in no haste to avail himself of the leave granted him. A heavy sadness blotted the gayety of a face whose sunny sympathy had been her only cheer for many days. She fancied a bewilderment in its hopelessness which smote her with still sharper pathos. “Of course,” she said, “I appreciate your wish to do what I wanted, about Mrs. Maynard. I remember my telling you that she ought n’t to go out, that day. But that was not the way to do it” —

  “There was no other,” he said.

  “No,” she assented, upon reflection. “Then it ought n’t to have been done.”

  He showed no sign of intending to continue, and after a moment of restlessness, she began again.

  “If I have been rude or hasty in refusing to hear you, Mr. Libby, I am very wrong. I must hear anything you have to say.”

  “Oh, not unless you wish.”

  “I wish whatever you wish.”

  “I’m not sure that I wish that now. I have thought it over; I should only distress you for nothing. You are letting me say why sentence shouldn’t be passed upon me. Sentence is going to be passed any way. I should only repeat what I have said. You would pity me, but you couldn’t help me. And that would give you pain for nothing. No, it would be useless.”

  “It would be useless to talk to me about — loving.” She took the word on her lips with a certain effect of adopting it for convenience’ sake in her vocabulary. “All that was ended for me long ago, — ten years ago. And my whole life since then has been shaped to do without it. I will tell you my story if you like. Perhaps it’s your due. I wish to be just. You may have a right to know.”

  “No, I haven’t. But — perhaps I ought to say that Mrs. Maynard told me something.”

  “Well, I am glad of that, though she had no right to do it. Then you can understand.”

  “Oh, yes, I can understand. I don’t pretend that I had any reason in it.”

  He forbore again to urge any plea for himself, and once more she was obliged to interfere in his behalf. “Mr. Libby, I have never confessed that I once wronged you in a way that I’m very sorry for.”

  “About Mrs. Maynard? Yes, I know. I won’t try to whitewash myself; but it didn’t occur to me how it would look. I wanted to talk with her about you.”

  “You ought to have considered her, though,” she said gently.

  “She ought to have considered herself,” he retorted, with his unfailing bitterness for Mrs. Maynard. “But it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. I’m sufficiently punished; for I know that it injured me with you.”

  “It did at first. But now I can see that I was wrong. I wished to tell you that. It isn’t creditable to me that I thought you intended to flirt with her. If I had been better myself” —

  “You!” He could not say more.

  That utter faith in her was very charming. It softened her more and more; it made her wish to reason with him, and try gently to show him how impossible his hope was. “And you know,” she said, recurring to something that had gone before, “that even if I had cared for you in the way you wish, it could n’t be. You would n’t want to have people laughing and saying I had been a doctress.”

  “I shouldn’t have minded. I know how much people’s talk is worth.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I know you would be generous and brave about that — about anything. But what — what if I could n’t give up my career — my hopes of being useful in the way I have planned? You would n’t have liked me to go on practising medicine?”

  “I thought of that,” he answered simply. “I didn’t see how it could be done. But if you saw any way, I was willing — No, that was my great trouble! I knew that it was selfish in me, and very conceited, to suppose you would give up your whole life for me; and whenever I thought of that, I determined not to ask you. But I tried not to think of that.”

  “Well, don’t you see? But if I could have answered you as you wish, it wouldn’t have been anything to give up everything for you. A woman isn’t something else first, and a woman afterwards. I understand how unselfishly you meant, and indeed, indeed, I thank you. But don’t let’s talk of it any more. It couldn’t have been, and there is nothing but misery in thinking of it. Come,” she said, with a struggle for cheerfulness, “let us forget it. Let it be just as if you hadn’t spoken to me; I know you did n’t intend to do it; and let us go on as if nothing had happened.”

  “Oh, we can’t go on,” he answered. “I shall get away, as soon as Maynard comes, and rid you of the sight of me.”

  “Are you going away?” she softly asked. “Why need you? I know that people always seem to think they can’t be friends after — such a thing as this. But why shouldn’t we? I respect you, and I like you very much. You have shown me more regard and more kindness than any other friend” —

  “But I wasn’t your friend,” he interrupted. “I loved you.”

  “Well,” she sighed, in gentle perplexity, “then you can’t be my friend?”

  “Never. But I shall always love you. If it would do any good, I would stay, as you ask it. I should n’t mind myself. But I should be a nuisance to you.”

  “No, no!” she exclaimed. “I will take the risk of that. I need your advice, your — sympathy, your — You won’t trouble me, indeed you won’t. Perhaps you have mistaken your — feeling about me. It’s such a very little time since we met,” she pleaded.

  “That makes no difference, — the time. And I’m not mistaken.”

  “Well, stay at least till Mrs. Maynard is well, and we can all go away together. Promise me that!” She instinctively put out her hand toward him in entreaty. He took it, and pressing it to his lips covered it with kisses.

  “Oh!” she grieved in reproachful surprise.

  “There!” he cried. “You see that I must go!”

  “Yes,” she sighed in assent, “you must go.”

  They did not look at each other again, but remained in a lamentable silence while the boat pushed swiftly before the freshening breeze; and when they reached the place where the dory lay, he dropped the sail and threw out the anchor without a word.

  He was haggard to the glance she stole at him, when they had taken their places in the dory, and he confronted her, pulling hard at the oars. He did not lift his eyes to hers, but from time to time he looked over his
shoulder at the boat’s prow, and he rowed from one point to another for a good landing. A dreamy pity for him filled her; through the memories of her own suffering, she divined the soreness of his heart.

  She started from her reverie as the bottom of the dory struck the sand. The shoal water stretched twenty feet beyond. He pulled in the oars and rose desperately. “It’s of no use: I shall have to carry you ashore.”

  She sat staring up into his face, and longing to ask him something, to accuse him of having done this purposely. But she had erred in so many doubts, her suspicions of him had all recoiled so pitilessly upon her, that she had no longer the courage to question or reproach him. “Oh, no, thank you,” she said weakly. “I won’t trouble you. I — I will wait till the tide is out.”

  “The tide’s out now,” he answered with coldness, “and you can’t wade.”

  She rose desperately. “Why, of course!” she cried in self-contempt, glancing at the water, into which he promptly stepped to his boot-tops. “A woman must n’t get her feet wet.”

  VIII.

  Grace went to her own room to lay aside her shawl and hat, before going to Mrs. Maynard, and found her mother sewing there.

  “Why, who is with Mrs. Maynard?” she asked.

  “Miss Gleason is reading to her,” said Mrs. Breen. “If she had any sort of active treatment, she could get well at once. I couldn’t take the responsibility of doing anything for her, and it was such a worry to stay and see everything going wrong, that when Miss Gleason came in I was glad to get away. Miss Gleason seems to believe in your Dr. Mulbridge.”

  “My Dr. Mulbridge!” echoed Grace.

  “She talked of him as if he were yours. I don’t know what you’ve been saying to her about him; but you had better be careful. The woman is a fool.” She now looked up at her daughter for the first time. “Why, what is the matter with you what kept you so long? You look perfectly wild.”

  “I feel wild,” said Grace calmly. “The wind went down.”

  “Was that all? I don’t see why that should make you feel wild,” said her mother, dropping her spectacles to her sewing again.

  “It was n’t all,” answered the girl, sinking provisionally upon the side of a chair, with her shawl still on her arm, and her hat in her hand. “Mother, have you noticed anything peculiar about Mr. Libby?”

  “He’s the only person who seems to be of the slightest use about here; I’ve noticed that,” said Mrs. Breen. “He’s always going and coming for you and Mrs. Maynard. Where is that worthless husband of hers? Has n’t he had time to come from Cheyenne yet?”

  “He’s on the way. He was out at his ranch when Mr. Libby telegraphed first, and had to be sent for. We found a despatch from him at Leyden, saying he had started,” Grace explained.

  “What business had he to be so far away at all?” demanded her mother. It was plain that Mrs. Breen was in her most censorious temper, which had probably acquired a sharper edge towards Maynard from her reconciliation with his wife.

  Grace seized her chance to meet the worst. “Do you think that I have done anything to encourage Mr. Libby?” she asked, looking bravely at her mother.

  “Encourage him to do what?” asked Mrs. Breen, without lifting her eyes from her work.

  “Encouraged him to — think I cared for him; to — to be in love with me.”

  Mrs. Breen lifted her head now, and pushed her spectacles up on her forehead, while she regarded her daughter in silence. “Has he been making love to you?”

  “Yes.”

  Her mother pushed her spectacles down again; and, turning the seam which she had been sewing, flattened it with her thumb-nail. She made this action expressive of having foreseen such a result, and of having struggled against it, neglected and alone. “Very well, then. I hope you accepted him?” she asked quietly.

  “Mother!”

  “Why not? You must like him,” she continued in the same tone. “You have been with him every moment the last week that you have n’t been with Mrs. Maynard. At least I’ve seen nothing of you, except when you came to tell me you were going to walk or to drive with him. You seem to have asked him to take you most of the time.”

  “How can you say such a thing, mother?” cried the girl.

  “Did n’t you ask him to let you go with him this afternoon? You told me you did.”

  “Yes, I did. I did it for a purpose.”

  “Ah! for a purpose,” said Mrs. Breen, taking a survey of the new seam, which she pulled from her knee, where one end of it was pinned, towards her chin. She left the word to her daughter, who was obliged to take it.

  “I asked him to let me go with him because Louise had tortured me about making her go out in his boat, till I could n’t bear it any longer. It seemed to me that if I took the same risk myself, it would be something; and I hoped there would be a storm.”

  “I should think you had taken leave of your senses,” Mrs. Breen observed, with her spectacles intent upon her seam. “Did you think it would be any consolation to him if you were drowned, or to her? And if,” she added, her conscience rising equal to the vicarious demand upon it, “you hoped there would be danger, had you any right to expose him to it? Even if you chose to risk your own life, you had no right to risk his.” She lifted her spectacles again, and turned their austere glitter upon her daughter.

  “Yes, it all seems very silly now,” said the girl, with a hopeless sigh.

  “Silly!” cried her mother. “I’m glad you can call it silly.”

  “And it seemed worse still when he told me that he had never believed it was going to storm that day, when he took Louise out. His man said it was, and he repeated it because he saw I did n’t want her to go.”

  “Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Breen, “if he was willing to deceive her then, he is willing to deceive you now.”

  “He didn’t deceive her. He said what he had heard. And he said it because he — I wished it.”

  “I call it deceiving. Truth is truth. That is what I was taught; and that’s what I supposed I had taught you.”

  “I would trust Mr. Libby in anything,” returned the daughter. “He is perfectly frank about himself. He confessed that he had done it to please me. He said that nothing else could excuse it.”

  “Oh, then you have accepted him!”

  “No, mother, I haven’t. I have refused him, and he is going away as soon as Mr. Maynard comes.” She sat looking at the window, and the tears stole into her eyes, and blurred the sea and sky together where she saw their meeting at the horizon line.

  “Well,” said her mother, “their that is the end of it, I presume.”

  “Yes, that’s the end,” said Grace. “But — I felt sorry for him, mother. Once,” she went on, “I thought I had everything clear before me; but now I seem only to have made confusion of my life. Yes,” she added drearily, “it was foolish and wicked, and it was perfectly useless, too. I can’t escape from the consequences of what I did. It makes no difference what he believed or any one believed. I drove them on to risk their lives because I thought myself so much better than they; because I was self-righteous and suspicious and stubborn. Well, I must bear the penalty: and oh, if I could only bear it alone!” With a long sigh she took back the burden which she had been struggling to cast off, and from which for a time she had actually seemed to escape. She put away her hat and shawl, and stood before the glass, smoothing her hair. “When will it ever end?” she moaned to the reflection there, rather than to her mother, who did not interrupt this spiritual ordeal. In another age, such a New England girl would have tortured herself with inquisition as to some neglected duty to God; — in ours, when religion is so largely humanified, this Puritan soul could only wreak itself in a sense of irreparable wrong to her fellow-creature.

  When she went out she met Miss Gleason half-way down the corridor to Mrs. Maynard’s door. The latter had a book in her hand, and came forward whispering. “She’s asleep,” she said very sibilantly. “I have read her to sleep, and she’s sleeping
beautifully. Have you ever read it?” she asked, with hoarse breaks from her undertone, as she held up one of those cheap library-editions of a novel toward Grace.

  “Jane Eyre? Why, of course. Long ago.”

  “So have I,” said Miss Gleason. “But I sent and got it again, to refresh my impressions of Rochester. We all think Dr. Mulbridge is just like him. Rochester is my ideal character, — a perfect conception of a man: so abrupt, so rough, so savage. Oh, I like those men! Don’t you?” she fluted. “Mrs. Maynard sees the resemblance, as well as the rest of us. But I know! You don’t approve of them. I suppose they can’t be defended on some grounds; but I can see how, even in such a case as this, the perfect mastery of the man-physician constitutes the highest usefulness of the woman-physician. The advancement of women must be as women. ‘Male and female created he them,’ and it is only in remembering this that we are helping Gawd, whether as an anthropomorphic conception or a universally pervading instinct of love, don’t you think?”

  With her novel clapped against her breast, she leaned winningly over toward Grace, and fixed her with her wide eyes, which had rings of white round the pupils.

  “Do tell me!” she ran on without waiting an answer. “Didn’t you go with Mr. Libby because you hoped it might storm, and wished to take the same risk as Mrs. Maynard? I told Mrs. Alger you did!”

  Grace flushed guiltily, and Miss Gleason cowered a little, perhaps interpreting the color as resentment. “I should consider that a very silly motive,” she said, helplessly ashamed that she was leaving the weight of the blow upon Miss Gleason’s shoulders instead of her own.

  “Of course,” said Miss Gleason enthusiastically, “you can’t confess it. But I know you are capable of such a thing — of anything heroic! Do forgive me,” she said, seizing Grace’s hand. She held it a moment, gazing with a devouring fondness into her face, which she stooped a little sidewise to peer up into. Then she quickly dropped her hand, and, whirling away, glided slimly out of the corridor.

  Grace softly opened Mrs. Maynard’s door, and the sick woman opened her eyes. “I was n’t asleep,” she said hoarsely, “but I had to pretend to be, or that woman would have killed me.”