Loe raamatut: «The Brute», lehekülg 4

CHAPTER VII

It is a curious, but undeniable, fact that there is something in the effect of rapid motion upon the senses that generates love. Possibly it is the poetry of movement which attunes the mind to thoughts of a less practical nature. The dance, the swift motion of an ocean liner, the whirl of a motor car, are they not responsible for a multitude of sins; else why the ballroom flirtations, the love-affairs on shipboard, the eloping heiress and the chauffeur? Certain it is that there was something in the drive to Garden City at Edith’s side that morning, which engendered in West a more passive attitude, a more willing yielding to their growing love for each other, than he had felt while walking with her in the park the day before. She, on her part, dismissed all unpleasant thoughts from her mind, and reveled in the joy of the moment. The day was brilliant, though somewhat cold. The heavy fur-lined coat she wore had been purchased a short time before by West, for her especial use; she appreciated the motive which had prompted him to do this – he thought so continually of her comfort, her happiness.

She turned and glanced at him, and noted with pleasure, even with a secret glow of happiness, the strong, handsome lines of his face, ruddy in the sharp wind, the strength of his arms, the poise of his shoulders. Through the coat which enveloped her she could feel the subtle warmth of his body – she nestled closer to him, and basked in a delightful realization of his strength, his mastery over the on-rushing car, his steady, unfailing nerves, which alone stood between her and death. It seemed so fine to know that her life rested in his hands, that a momentary weakness, a trifling slip on his part might hurl them both to destruction against some tree, or rock, or ever present telegraph pole. She began to wonder, after all, how she had ever lived these years without love, real, dominating love, such as she believed this to be, to illumine and glorify her life. Everything, indeed, with Donald seemed so sordid. There was the everlasting talk of money, the continual effort to make ends meet, the constant fear lest she spend a little more than his income would justify. All this had passed from her, to-day. She moved along in a cloud of wonderful, waking dreams, and life seemed once more a joyous, sentient thing. She even forgot Bobbie, and it almost seemed as though, if she could spend all the rest of her life by West’s side, anything else would be of but minor importance.

West interrupted her day-dreams. “Are you warm enough, dear?” he asked suddenly.

“Oh, yes, quite,” she gasped against the wind and wondered if he realized how in using that term of endearment he had caused a glow of happiness to flood her until her faced burned. It was something he had never done before, yet it did not seem strange to her. Their personalities seemed vibrant, attuned to each other and to some great harmony of love which was a part of the rushing wind, the brilliant sunshine, the blue sky. She felt that he was going to say something to her – something that she dreaded, yet waited for as a bride for her bridegroom. Somehow all thought of disloyalty to Donald had vanished. It was not that she put it aside, or trampled upon it – in this glorified atmosphere of love it simply no longer existed.

Presently he turned to her, as they were slowly mounting a long stretch of hill. “I wish we could go on and on, and never stop, for all the rest of our lives,” he said, looking at her hungrily. She met his gaze with a glad smile and they told each other with their eyes what had been growing in their hearts for all these months. The road stretched before them, gray and lonely. West put his left arm about her with a caressing motion that seemed to embrace within it not only herself, but all her hopes and fears, her troubles and her joys. She did not passively yield herself to his embraces, she leaped to him, her brain on fire, her soul in her eyes. When their lips met, she hardly knew it, all the music of the heavenly choirs seemed singing in her ears, and in that moment of supreme happiness neither future nor past for her existed. In an instant he had turned from her and, with his hands on the steering wheel, swept the road ahead with cautious eyes. The whole thing seemed like a dream – a fantasy of the imagination, yet she knew it was the realest thing in her life at the moment, the one great experience that eclipsed all lesser experiences as though they had never been at all.

They did not say much for a long time, for each seemed to feel the irrevocability of the thing that had befallen them. It was not as though West had kissed her, as a man might kiss a flirtatiously inclined woman. She knew that to him, at least, that kiss had meant a seal of love; what it had meant to her she had not yet in her own mind decided.

After what seemed to her hours, he spoke again. “I am thinking of going away, Edith,” he said, and his voice seemed to come to her from a long way off, and wake her from happy dreams.

“Going away?” she asked, with a new timidity. “Where?”

“To Europe, to Cairo, to the East.”

“Why?”

“Because I cannot stay here any longer.”

“Why not?” she found herself asking. “Why not?”

“Because I love you, dear, and because, if I stay here, I am afraid of what might happen. I want to go away, to get out into the great, wide places of the world, where air, and sunshine, and love are free and God-given. I hate New York and all it means. I cannot stay in it any longer – as things are.”

“Then I shall not see you – any more?” she asked in a voice from which she was unable to keep a quivering sense of loss, of pain.

“Not unless you will go with me,” he said suddenly, turning and looking into her face.

“Go with you – go with you?” She repeated the words mechanically, as though the thought suggested by them had not yet found a place in her mind. “How could I?”

“Why not?” His voice became suddenly intense, trembling with feeling. “I love you, and I want you, always, close by my side. I cannot think of going on, all the years of my life, without you. I know how wrong, how disloyal it all must seem to you, but I cannot help it. I love you – I love you – what more is there for me to say? If you wish it, I will go away from you at once – to-day, and never see you again, if it breaks my heart. Shall I?”

She gave a faint cry. The thought hurt her, in its unexpected cruelty. “How can you ask me that?”

The car was running very slowly now, along a stretch of road bordered by high trees, faintly green in their early spring garb. He let the machine come to a standstill beside the road and took her fiercely into his arms. “Edith, I cannot go without you – my God – I cannot. Come with me, dearest, come, and forget all the troubles and cares of your life here.” He pressed her to him with quivering muscles and kissed her. “Will you? Will you?” he demanded, and his voice seemed to her a command, rather than a question.

She yielded to his embrace gladly, with a joyous sense of freedom. “Yes – yes!” she cried, and lay still in his arms.

Presently they heard, far behind them, the sound of another car ascending the hill. West put her from him, started the machine, and they rushed along against the southeast wind, their hearts big with their new-formed plan.

Then a long silence came upon them. Perhaps they were both thinking of the pain which their love must cause to Donald, the inevitable consequences which must flow from it. It was a natural reaction from the exaltation of the moment before. Edith, too, was thinking of Bobbie, and already in her inmost soul had begun to resent the demands of this new emotion, which required her to tear out of her heart all that now lay within it, that there might be room for her love for West alone. Yet so strange are the ways of love, that, while resenting the result, she did not resent the love which caused it – to her Billy West was, for the time being at least, the sum of all earthly existence.

It was after one o’clock when they reached the hotel at Garden City, and in a few moments they had secured a table and were ordering luncheon. West suggested a cocktail, which seemed very grateful after the long ride. Edith did not feel hungry, but ate mechanically, hardly knowing what was set before her. She looked timidly at him, and felt her cheeks redden with a sudden flush. Somehow he seemed so big, so masterful, so different from Donald, and she knew that whenever he desired, from now on, to take her in his strong arms, she would not resist him, but would be glad. She seemed to feel toward him an intense physical attraction, something that she had never felt toward her husband, an unreasoning instinct, that made her long to be near him, to hear his voice, to put her hand in his, and forget everything else in the blessed knowledge that this man of her desire possessed her completely and utterly.

These thoughts came to her as an undercurrent, far below the ripple of conversation with which the meal passed. Only once did they look over the precipice upon the edge of which they walked so lightly. She ventured, half-afraid, to ask him when he thought of leaving New York. His answer showed that he, too, had been thinking deeply of the matter which lay nearest their hearts.

“I must go to Denver first,” he said. “All my property is there, you know, and I shall have to arrange about it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I shall sell out my stock in the mine, and resign my position as vice-president. It may take a week or two to do that. After I have converted the stock into money, it will be necessary to put it into some good security, bonds probably, which will require no attention. That will leave me free to go abroad, and stay as long as I please, without having to bother about business affairs. We can go to Egypt, to Persia, to India, to Japan, and when we come back – ” He hesitated, halted.

“When we come back! Can we ever come back, dear?” she asked timidly.

“Of course we can. Your husband will know that we love each other; and surely he will make it possible for us to be married. After all, you have never been happy with him. He should be glad to see you happy with someone else.”

The matter-of-fact way in which he spoke of their future jarred upon her. It was one thing to dream of running away to some imagined country of palms and eternal summer, in an ecstasy of love, but the details, the sordid necessities of the thing, seemed hard and cruel, even when viewed through the rosy spectacles of love. To think of coming back to New York and the chilly isolation of the social outcast did not appeal to her – it was like awakening from the dream to realities anything but pleasant. He must have seen her distaste, or felt it, for he changed the subject abruptly, merely remarking that he had decided to go to Denver that night.

“To-night?” she asked – “Why to-night? You have only just come from there.”

“The sooner I go, the better. Matters are in such shape now that I can sell out my interests quickly. I found that out, while I was there. If I wait, it may be more difficult. The company is thinking of taking over some new properties, and that will require considerable money. I had better go at once.”

She trembled at the thought of what it all meant, but said no word to discourage him. Somehow the very success which had crowned her dreams now seemed to make them less beautiful – less to be desired. Why couldn’t they just go on loving each other, without all this – this upsetting of things? She suddenly found herself blushing at the realization of just what it was that her thoughts actually meant.

The run back to town was cheerless and cold, and singularly symbolic of her state of mind. The brightness of the morning had faded before the bank of ashen-colored clouds that whirled up from the southeast with a suggestion of winter in their formless masses. West drove the car at top speed, as though he, too, felt the approach of something chilling, an aftermath to their dreams. It was nearly five when they reached the ferry in Long Island City, and the lights in the stores and along the streets had already begun to sparkle through the gathering mists of evening.

“We should have come back earlier,” said Edith, a bit worried. “Bobbie will wonder what has become of me.” She had left the child in Alice’s care, the nurse being out, and knew that the latter would be anxious to get back to the boarding-house and dinner. There was her own evening meal to prepare as well. At once all the realities of life arose to reach out to her, and draw her back to her old routine.

“We can easily make it by half-past five,” said West, as they turned from Thirty-fourth Street into Madison Avenue. “What time will Donald be home?”

“A little after five, I suppose. We shall probably find him at home when we get there.”

They drove up to the house just as Donald was ascending the steps. Edith felt an overpowering sense of guilt as he helped her from the machine; she said good-by to West rather hastily, as she stood beside her husband on the sidewalk. Nothing was said about the proposed trip to Denver; Donald asked them about their day’s outing, hoped they had had a pleasant time; further than that there was no conversation. As the motor rolled off, West looked back and nodded, and in a moment Edith found herself ascending the elevator with her husband, wondering if, after all, the experience of the day had not been a strange dream.

It seemed queer, unreal, to come down to the commonplace things of life. Potatoes had to be peeled, a steak cooked, all the details of the preparation of their simple dinner. Bobbie was cross and hungry, and hung about her skirts as she moved to and fro in the kitchen. Alice had hurried away, with a rather nasty remark concerning her long stay. More than ever she realized that life – her life – was so full of things that meant nothing to her, so barren of those that really counted. She placed the dinner upon the table with a heart full of bitterness, but she showed nothing of it to Donald.

He was full of his new venture in the glass business. A friend by the name of Forbes had come to him that afternoon with some patents for making glass tiling; there was a fortune in it, he rattled on, and she listened, only half-comprehending what it was all about. She had always tried to take an interest in her husband’s business affairs, but, to-night, her heart was too full of other things – things that alternately lifted her up into realms of hitherto unknown happiness, and then dropped her into the black depths of despair. After all, it would soon be over, she reflected, and then, frightened by her thoughts, put them from her, and choked down her dinner with a strange sense of desolation. Billy was gone – Billy, who had filled her days and nights with a new joy of living. Gone – gone! Suppose something were to happen to him! The thought that she might never see him again frightened her.

CHAPTER VIII

One evening, about two weeks after West had left New York for Denver, Alice Pope, Edith’s sister, came down to the Roxborough for the purpose of spending the evening.

The two girls were very much alike in temperament and training and had always been great friends, confiding to each other most of the affairs of their rather uneventful existence. Alice was two years younger than Edith, and while not so handsome a woman, was the stronger nature of the two; as was evidenced by her somewhat more firmly molded chin, her lips, less full than Edith’s, and her gray eyes, which, set somewhat more closely together, gave to her face an expression of shrewdness and determination only relieved by her good-natured and rather large mouth.

She was not a frequent visitor at the Rogers’ apartment, at least in the evening, as she and Donald did not get along very well – they were good enough friends, but neither found the other very congenial. Alice thought Donald hard and unsympathetic, a feeling which arose largely from the tales of woe with which Edith so frequently regaled her. Donald, feeling this attitude of criticism, and too proud to attempt to controvert it, remained silent, which but convinced Alice the more of his lack of warmth and geniality. Thus the two preserved a sort of armed neutrality, the effect of which was to keep them forever at arm’s length.

Edith was in a state of extreme nervousness, and even the pretense of looking at a magazine hardly served to conceal the fact from Donald – he would inevitably have noticed it, had he not been busily occupied at his desk.

The cause of her nervousness reposed safely within the bosom of her dress. It was a letter from West which had come for her, three days before, and its contents had caused her the gravest concern. She felt glad that Alice was coming – glad that Donald had decided to go out for a stroll. She had been inwardly debating the advisability of taking her sister into her confidence, when the door-bell rang.

It was about eight o’clock, and Donald was just going out to post his letters.

“Hello, Sis!” said Alice, as she came in, then she nodded to Donald.

“Good-evening, Alice,” Edith replied. “Where’s mother? I thought she was coming with you.”

“She’ll be along presently.” The girl took off her long pony-skin coat and threw it carelessly upon the couch. “She stopped at Mrs. Harrison’s for a few minutes to return a book she had borrowed.” She shivered slightly. “Pretty cold, isn’t it? Never knew such a late spring.”

Edith turned to Donald, who was putting on his coat. “Get some quinine capsules, Donald – two grain. Bobbie’s cold is worse to-night.”

“Have you had the doctor?” inquired her husband.

“Oh, no, it isn’t as bad as that. Just a little fever.”

“Very well. I’ll be back presently.” He took up his hat and went out.

Edith, instead of joining her sister, began to walk aimlessly about the room. She had with difficulty concealed her agitation from Donald, and, now that he had gone, she still could not decide whether or not it would be wisdom on her part to confide in her sister. She felt the necessity of confiding in someone.

Alice presently observed the nervousness, and commented upon it in her usual frank way. “For heaven’s sake, Edith,” she remarked, “sit down. Don’t walk about like that. You make me nervous. What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

“Oh, nothing!” Edith threw herself dispiritedly into a chair, and, with an expression which bespoke an utter weariness of spirit, gazed moodily at her hands, roughened and red from the washing of dishes.

“Nothing?” said Alice, looking at her closely. “You look as though you had lost your last friend.”

“Perhaps I have.” The answer was significant, although to Alice it meant nothing.

“What do you mean by that?” she inquired. “I think you might try to be a little more agreeable. It wouldn’t hurt you any. If you are going to sit here and hand out chunks of gloom all the evening, I think I’ll go home.” It was characteristic of Alice to be determinedly cheerful on all occasions, a trait born not so much of any inherent optimism as of a dislike for being made uncomfortable.

Edith looked at her hesitatingly. “Don’t mind me, Alice,” she presently observed, in an apologetic voice, “I’m worried.”

“Do you suppose I can’t see that? You’ve been acting like an Ibsen play for the past three days. Why don’t you get it off your mind?” She hitched her chair about, and faced her sister with a curious look. “I’m safe enough. You ought to know that by this time. Come – out with it. What’s wrong? Let’s have the awful details.”

“It isn’t anything to joke about,” remarked Edith, not entirely relishing her sister’s tone.

“I’m not joking – not a bit of it. If you are in any trouble, Sis, you know you can count on me. I may be able to help you out; two heads are better than one, you know.”

With a sudden glance, Edith decided to take her sister into her confidence. Her question, quick and unexpected, aroused Alice to new interest. “Do you like Billy West?” she asked.

“Billy West? Of course I do. What’s he got to do with it?”

“Everything!”

Alice hitched her chair still closer, and looked at her sister in surprise. “You don’t mean to say – ?” she began, then concluded her remark with a significant whistle.

“Alice,” said her sister, “you’ve known Billy for a long time. You know he is one of Donald’s best friends – ”

“I always thought so. He must like one of you pretty well, judging by the amount of time he spends here.”

“You didn’t know, perhaps, that he was very much in love with me, years ago, before he went to Colorado.”

“I always suspected it. Pity you didn’t marry him. He made about half a million out there, didn’t he, in that gold mine?”

“I don’t know just what he made. That has nothing to do with it. Ever since he came back to New York to live, three months ago, I’ve seen a great deal of him – ”

“I should say you had. If I hadn’t thought him such a good friend of Donald’s I’d have been suspicious long ago. I’ve envied you often enough, your auto rides, and luncheons at the Knickerbocker, and dinners, and theater parties. He doesn’t mind spending his money – that’s one thing sure, but I never thought – ” She paused and looked at her sister with renewed interest. “Is he in love with you now?”

“Yes.” Edith spoke slowly – almost as though to herself. The thought was apparently not distasteful to her.

“You don’t say so! The plot thickens. So that’s why he’s been here morning, noon and night. Does Donald know?”

“Donald! Of course not.”

“Has Billy said anything?”

“Said anything? To whom?”

“To you, of course. Has he told you that he still loves you?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t exactly fair of him.” Alice was a good deal of a Puritan at heart, and not at all lacking in frankness. “He ought not to have done it. I’m not so strong for Donald, goodness knows, but it strikes me as being pretty rough on him, just the same. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, and I told Billy so.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he had tried his best to keep from telling me, all these months. He went away, once, in April, you remember, and stayed nearly a month, to try to forget, but it didn’t do any good. He says he loves me more every day, and at last he had to tell me of it – he couldn’t keep from it any longer.”

“Well, what good has it done? He has sense enough to see that it’s perfectly hopeless, hasn’t he?”

“No, that’s the worst of it.”

Alice sat back in her chair in alarm. “Good heavens, Edith,” she gasped, “you must be losing your mind.”

“Why?”

“It isn’t possible you are thinking of – ” She paused and left her sentence incomplete, gazing intently at her sister. “Do you care for him?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do. You know what my life has been here. You know what it is going to be, for years. I suppose you will think me very disloyal and wicked, but, when a woman’s whole existence is made up, year after year, of wishing for all the things that make life worth while, and never, never being able to afford them, her love for her husband seems somehow to become dried up, and unimportant.”

“Hm-m – I suppose it does. I’ve never yet got to the point, myself, where I can really enjoy making over my last season’s clothes. I try to think they look as good as new, but they never do. I’m afraid I haven’t enough imagination. But all that doesn’t make any difference now. You’re married to Donald, and you’ve got to make the best of it. What a pity you didn’t choose Billy! Half a million – hm-m – it sounds like heaven to me. I wonder if he wouldn’t like me as a second choice,” she rattled on. “We certainly ought to try to keep that money in the family, somehow.”

“Alice, don’t talk such nonsense. It isn’t Billy’s money I’m thinking of.”

“If you can persuade yourself that that’s true,” said her sister grimly, “you really must be in love with him. But what’s the use of talking about it? It’s absurd.”

Edith stood up and walked nervously over to the desk, where she began idly fumbling with the papers upon it. Presently she turned to her sister who was regarding her with an inquiring look.

“He – he wants me to leave Donald,” she cried, in a half-frightened way.

“No! What a nerve!” Alice seemed to regard the whole affair as a huge joke.

“He says that I am wearing myself out,” continued her sister, “that I am wasting all the youth, and sweetness and joy of life, grinding on here in this hopeless situation. He says that, if Donald really loved me, he would see that, too.”

“It sounds like the latest best seller. The hero always says that to the neglected wife, doesn’t he?”

“If you are going to make fun of me,” remarked Edith with a show of anger, “I think we had better drop the subject.”

Alice got up and went over to her sister. “Oh, come now, Edith,” she said kindly, “don’t get so grouchy. I don’t see anything so tragic in all this. Suppose Billy does love you – what does he propose to do about it – run away with you?”

“Yes.” Her sister’s quiet tones had a ring of earnestness to them, of finality almost, that was alarming.

“The idea! Billy West of all people! I can’t believe it. I suppose you indignantly refused.”

“No, I didn’t. He told me how lonely he was; how bad it all made him feel; how it seemed so disloyal to Donald, but he – he couldn’t help it. He said I was everything in the world to him – that he had never loved any other woman, and never would – ”

“Oh, I can imagine what he said,” interrupted Alice. “That’s easy. The question is, what did you say?”

Edith looked at her in a frightened way, seemingly for a moment unwilling to meet her glance. “Alice,” she said, slowly and very softly, “I – I told him I would go.”

“Edith, you really can’t mean it.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Rogers, nodding her head slowly. “Yes. That was over two weeks ago. We had gone down to Garden City in the auto, and had luncheon there. It was a wonderful day – so clear, and bright and beautiful. I had had a row with Donald, the night before. It was about going away this summer. When I met Billy the next day, everything seemed so different. He was telling me about a wonderful trip he was planning, to India, and the East. We talked it over like two children, and then all of a sudden he said he wouldn’t – he couldn’t go, unless I went, too – ”

“It sounds fine.” Alice’s voice was not approving. “But what about Bobbie?”

Her sister passed her hand over her forehead and shivered slightly, glancing as she did so at the door of the adjoining bedroom. “Can’t you see that is why I cannot do it?” she cried with bitterness.

“Oh – you aren’t going to, then!” exclaimed Alice in a tone of relief. “I thought you said you had agreed to go.”

“I did. I must have been mad. I didn’t think of Bobbie, or of Donald, or anything, except that Billy and I loved each other, and were going away together, to be happier than I had ever dreamed of being in all my life. It all seemed so wonderful – almost like being born over again and living a new existence in a new and happier world. Then when I got home – ” She hesitated, and a look of pain crossed her face.

“You weakened on the proposition, of course. That’s the effect of habit. It’s a wonderful thing how it keeps us in the straight and narrow path. I once heard a divorced woman say that it took her over a year to get out of the habit of being married to her first husband. What did Billy say when you told him you had changed your mind? I’ll bet he was furious.”

Again Mrs. Rogers seemed unable to meet her sister’s keen gaze. “I haven’t told him,” she exclaimed, her voice little more than a whisper.

“Good heavens! Why not?”

“Because he had gone away. He went to Denver that same night. Didn’t you know?”

“Now that you mention it, I believe I did hear you say that he was out of town. I thought it strange I hadn’t seen anything of him, lately. What did he go to Denver for? I must say, it seems rather inconsiderate of him, under the circumstances.”

“He went to Denver, Alice, because his property is there. He intends to sell out his interest in the mine, and close up his affairs so that we can go away together, don’t you see? He said he was going to dispose of everything he had, and put all the money in bonds, so that he would be free to go away, and stay away the rest of his life, if he felt like it.”

“Well, I must say,” cried her sister, “he seems to be in earnest, at any rate, even if you are not.”

“Alice, Billy West loves me as truly and deeply as any woman was ever loved.”

“Then it seems to me that you are treating his love pretty shabbily. Why don’t you tell him the truth?”

“It wasn’t until after he had gone away that I began to realize what a terrific mistake it would all be – that I would probably ruin his life as well as my own. I ought to have written him at once, and told him I couldn’t do what I had agreed.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I was weak. I hadn’t the courage. Every day I put it off till the next.”

“Well, it isn’t too late yet, is it? If I were you, I would sit right down and write him a letter.”

Edith flung herself despairingly into a chair. “I don’t know whether it is too late or not,” she wailed. “That’s what is worrying me so. I haven’t slept for three nights – ever since I got his last letter.”

Alice went over to her sister’s chair, and put her arm about her shoulder. “Look here, Edith,” she said, her tone showing plainly her anxiety – “what’s all this about, anyway? You seem to be terribly upset. I can’t make head or tail of the matter. What’s worrying you so?”

“Three days ago,” said Edith, with quivering lips, “I got a letter from him. He’d been writing me every day up to then. That letter told me that he had appendicitis, and had gone to a hospital in Denver to be operated on. It was written last Thursday – that’s six days ago. Since then, I haven’t heard a single word.”

Alice appeared greatly relieved. “Is that all?” she cried. “I shouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. When anyone is lying flat on his back in a hospital, he doesn’t feel much like writing letters. Appendicitis isn’t very dangerous. I’ve known any number of people that have had it.”