CHAPTER XXV
Lansing Harold was unable to move from his bed, or in his bed, for a number of weeks. During much of this time, also, he suffered from severe pain.
Dr. Kirby assured Aunt Katrina that the pain was a favorable symptom; it indicated that there was no torpor; and with time, patience, and self-denial, therefore, there would be hope of a cure.
"Lanse isn't patient," Aunt Katrina admitted. "But I have always thought him extremely self-denying; see how he has allowed Margaret, for instance, to do as she pleased." For Aunt Katrina now regarded the Doctor as an intimate personal friend.
The Doctor went over to see Lanse three times a week, Winthrop's horses taking him to the river and bringing him back. On the other days the case was intrusted to the supervision of the local practitioner, or rather to his super-audition, for as Lanse, after the first interview, refused to see him again (he called him a water-wagtail), Margaret was obliged to describe as well as she could to the baffled man the symptoms and general condition of his patient – a patient who was as impatient as possible with every one, including herself.
But save for this small duty, Margaret had none of the responsibilities of a nurse; two men were in attendance. She had sent to Savannah for them, Lanse having declared that he infinitely preferred having men about him – "I can swear at them, you know, when the pain nips me. I can't swear at you yet – you're too much of a stranger." This he brought out in the scowling banter which he had used when speaking to her ever since her arrival. The scowl, however, came from his pain.
He was able to move only his head; in addition to the suffering, the confinement was intolerably irksome to a man of his active habits and fondness for out-door life. Under the course of treatment prescribed by Dr. Kirby he began to improve; but the improvement was slow, and he made it slower by his unwillingness to submit to rules. At the end of two months, however, he was able to use his hands and arms again, they could raise him to a sitting position; the attacks of pain came less frequently, and when they did come it was at night. This gave him his days, and one of the first uses he made of his new liberty was to have himself carried in an improvised litter borne by negroes, who relieved each other at intervals, to a house which he had talked about, when able to talk, ever since he was stricken down. This house was not in itself an attractive abode. But Lanse violently disliked being in a hotel; he had noticed the place before his illness, and thinking of it as he lay upon his bed, he kept declaring angrily that at least he should not feel "hived in" there. The building, bare and solitary, stood upon a narrow point which jutted sharply into the river, so that its windows commanded as uninterrupted a view up and down stream as that enjoyed by the little post-office at the end of the pier; it had the look of a signal-station.
It had not always been so exposed. Once it was an embowered Florida residence, shaded by many trees, clothed in flowering vines.
But its fate was to be purchased at the close of the war by a northerner, who, upon taking possession, had immediately stripped the old mansion of all its blossoming greenery, had cut down the stately trees which stood near, had put in a dozen new windows, and had then painted the whole structure a brilliant, importunate white. This process he called "making it wholesome."
This northerner, not having succeeded in teaching the southern soil how to improve itself, had returned to the more intelligent lands of colder climates; he was obliged to leave his house behind him, and he contemplated with hope the possibility of renting it "for a water-cure." Why a water-cure no one but himself knew. He was a man haunted by visions of water-cures.
Lansing Harold had no intention of trying hydropathy, unless the wide view of the river from all his windows could be called that. But he said that if he were there, at least he should not feel "jostled."
Jostled he certainly was not, he and his two attendants, Margaret and the colored servants she had with some difficulty obtained, had much more the air of Robinson Crusoes and Fridays on their island; for the hotel, which was the nearest house, was five miles distant, and not in sight, and the river was so broad that only an occasional smoke told that there were abodes of men opposite on the low hazy shore.
Once established in his new quarters, Lanse advanced rapidly towards a more endurable stage of existence. He was still unable to move his legs; but he could now bear being lifted into a canoe, and, once in, with a cushion behind him, he could paddle himself over the smooth water with almost as much ease as ever. He sent for a canoe which was just large enough to hold him; boat and occupant seemed like one person, so perfectly did the small craft obey the motion of his oar. One of his men was always supposed to accompany him; the two boats generally started together from the little home pier; but Lanse soon invented a way of ordering his follower to "wait" for him at this point or that, while he took "a run" up some creek that looked inviting. The "run" usually proved the main expedition of the day, and the "waiting" would be perhaps five hours long, – the two attendants could not complain of overwork; they soon learned, however, to go to sleep comfortably in the bottom of the boat. Oftenest of all, Lanse and his canoe went up the Juana; the Jana came from the Monnlungs Swamp; as the spring deepened, and all the flowers came out, Lanse and his little box went floating up to the Monnlungs almost every day.
Mrs. Rutherford had not seen her "boy;" he could not yet endure the motion of any carriage, even the easiest, across the long miles of pine-barren that lay between the river and East Angels, and it would require a brigade or two of negroes, so he said, to carry him all that distance in his litter. As soon as he should feel himself able to undertake so long a journey, he promised to go by steamer to the mouth of the St. John's; here the Emperadora could meet him and take him southward by sea to the harbor of Gracias, thence down the lagoon to the landing of East Angels itself.
Aunt Katrina was therefore waiting. But this was a condition of things which somebody was very apt to be enjoying where Lanse was concerned. Lanse had a marked contempt for what he called a "panting life." Under these circumstances, as he never panted himself, there was apt to be somebody else who was panting; by a little looking about one could have found, almost every day, several persons who had the reverse side of his leisurely tastes to bear.
Aunt Katrina, in bearing hers, at least had her Betty; now that Margaret was absent, this good soul remained constantly at East Angels, not returning to her home at all. She led a sort of camping-out existence, however, for dear Kate never asked her to bring down a trunk and make herself comfortable; dear Kate always took the tone that her friend would return home, probably, "about the day after to-morrow." Betty, therefore, had with her only her old carpet-bag, which, though voluminous, had yet its limits; she was constantly obliged to contrive secret methods of getting necessary articles down from Gracias. She lived in this make-shift manner for a long stretch of weeks, heroically wearing her best gown all the time, because to have sent for the second best would have appeared to dear Kate like preparation for a longer visit than she seemed to think she should at present require.
Every day dear Kate wrote a little note of affectionate inquiry to Lanse. These notes were piled up in a particular place in the house on the river; after the first three or four, Lanse never read them. About twice a week Margaret would take it upon herself to reply; and then Mrs. Rutherford would say, "As though I wanted Margaret Cruger's answers!" She explained to Betty that Margaret purposely kept Lanse from writing. And then Betty would shake her head slowly with her lips pursed up, but without venturing further answer; for she had already got herself into trouble with Katrina by expatiating warmly upon the "great comfort" it must be to "poor Mr. Harold" to have his wife with him once more.
"Nothing of the sort!" had been Katrina's brief response.
"Such a comfort to her, then, poor dear, to be able to devote herself to him in this time of trial."
"Margaret devote herself!"
"Well, at least, dear Kate, it must be a great comfort to you to have them together again, as they ought to be, of course," pursued Betty, hopefully. "It may be – who knows? – probably it will be without doubt, the beginning of a true reconciliation, a true home."
"True fiddle-sticks! It shouldn't be, then, in my opinion, even if it could be; Margaret Cruger has been much too leniently dealt with. After deserting her husband as she has done entirely all these years, she shouldn't have been taken back so easily, she should have been made to go down on her knees before he forgave her."
"Dear me! do you really think so?" said Betty, dismayed by this picture. "And Mrs. Harold has so much sweet dignity, too."
"It should be stripped from her then, it's all hum; what right has Margaret Cruger to such an amount of dignity? Is she Alexandra, Princess of Wales, may I ask?"
"Do you know, I have always thought she looked quite a deal like her," exclaimed Betty, delighted with this coincidence.
But Katrina's comparison had been an impersonal one, she was not thinking of the fair graceful Princess of the Danes. "My patience! Elizabeth Gwinnet, how dull you are sometimes!" she exclaimed, closing her eyes with a groan.
Elizabeth Gwinnet agreed that she was dull, agreed with an unresentful laugh. Katrina's epithets were a part of the vagaries of her illness, of course; if she, Betty, was sure of anything in this world, she was sure that she was an enormous comfort to her poor dear Kate. And under those circumstances one could agree to anything.
While helpless and in pain, Lansing Harold had been entirely absorbed in his own condition; even Margaret's arrival he had noticed but slightly. This strong, dark man took his illness as an extraordinary dispensation, a tragic miracle; he was surprised that Dr. Kirby was not more agitated, he was surprised that his two attendants, when they came, did not evince a deeper concern. Surely it was a case unprecedented, terrible; surely no one had ever had such an ordeal before. Not once did he emerge from his own personality and look upon his condition as part of the common lot; Lanse, indeed, had never believed that he belonged to the common lot.
He announced to everybody that Fate was treating him with frightful injustice. Why should he be maimed and shackled in this way – he, a man who had always led a wholly simple, natural life? He had never shut himself up in an office, burned his eyes out over law papers, or narrowed his chest over ledgers; he had never sacrificed his liberty in the sordid pursuit of money-getting. On the contrary, he had admired all beautiful things wherever they were to be found, he had breathed the fresh air of heaven, had seen all there was of life and nature, and enjoyed it all in a full, free, sane way. It was monstrous, it was ridiculous, to strike at him; strike, and welcome, at the men who kept their windows down! Thus he inveighed, thus he protested, and all in perfectly good faith; Lanse believed of himself exactly what he said.
But once established in a house of his own, and able to float about on the river, promptly his good-humor came back to him; for Lanse, while not in the least amiable, had always had an abundance of good-humor. He began to laugh again, he began to tell Margaret stories connected with his life abroad; Lanse's stories, though the language was apt to be as condensed as that of telegraphic despatches, were invariably good.
There had been no formal explanations between these two, no serious talk. Lanse hated serious talk; and as for explanations, as he had never in his life been in the habit of giving them, it was not likely that he was going to begin now. When Margaret first arrived, and he could scarcely see her from pain, he had managed to say, "Oh, you're back? glad to see you" – as though she had left him but the week before – and this matter-of-course tone he had adhered to ever since; it was the easier since his wife showed no desire to alter it.
He required no direct services from her, his men did everything. As he grew better, he gave her the position of a comrade whom it was a pleasure to meet when he came (in his wheeled chair) to the parlor in the evening; he thanked her gallantly for being there. In this way they lived on, Margaret had been for nine or ten weeks under the same roof with him before he made any allusion to their personal relations; even then it was only a remark or two, uttered easily, and as though he had happened to think of it just then. The remarks embodied the idea that the "interruption" (that was what he called it) which had occurred in their life together should be left undiscussed between them; it had happened, let it therefore remain "happened;" they couldn't improve it by chattering about it (an illusion of weak minds), but they could take up the threads again where they had left them, and go on without any "bother."
Later, he added a few words more; they were not taking up the threads, after all, just where they had left them, but in a much better place; for now they were relieved from any necessity for being sentimental. He admired her greatly, he didn't mind telling her that she had grown infinitely more interesting, as well as handsomer; but his having remained away from her as long as he had, and of his own accord, debarred him, of course, from expecting personal affection from her, at least at present; he certainly didn't expect it, she might rest secure about that; on the other hand, he didn't believe, either – no, not in the least – that she had broken her heart very deeply about him. There was no better foundation than this state of affairs for the most comfortable sort of years together, if she would look at it in the right way. What was the cause of most of the trouble between husbands and wives nowadays? – by "nowadays" he meant in modern times, since women had been allowed to complain. Their being so foolish, wasn't it? on one side or the other, as to wish to absorb each other, control each other, in a petty, dogmatic, jealous sort of way. Now in their case there would not be any clashing of that sort; when people had lived apart as they had, voluntarily and contentedly, for eight years, they must at least have got out of the habit of asking prying questions, of expecting a report of everything that happened, of trying to dictate and govern; as to jealousy, it would be rather late in the day to begin that.
These were the only approaches Lanse had made towards a discussion of intimate topics. The reserve was not so remarkable in him as it might have been in another man, for Lanse seldom talked on intimate topics with anybody; his principle, so far as it could be gathered from his life, appeared to have been to allow himself, in actual fact (quiet fact), the most radical liberty of action, while at the same time in speech, in tastes, in general manner, he remained firmly, even aggressively, a conservative; Lanse's "manner" had been much admired. Always, so he would have said, he behaved "as a gentleman should," which had seemed to mean (according to his own idea of it) that he had no local views of anything, that he was fond of the fine arts and good guns, that he had a taste for ablutions and fresh air, for laced shoes and shooting-jackets, and that he never (it had not happened since his early youth, at least) lost control of himself through drink. All this went perfectly with his apparent frankness. It also went perfectly with his real reserves.
On the occasions when he had said his few words to Margaret, he had given her no chance to reply; he had made his remarks as he took up a book. Lanse was sure that he read a great deal, that he was very fond of reading; in reality he read almost nothing, he only turned to reading as a last resort; he was barbarically ignorant regarding the authors of his day, he liked best personal memoirs and letters of the last century; when these failed him, he reread Fielding – fortunately Fielding was inexhaustible.
He was in the habit of saying this. But one evening even Fielding palled.
It was when they had been for nearly two months in the house on the river. He had been out during most of the afternoon in his canoe; his two attendants had now established him upon his sofa, placed everything which they thought he might want within his reach, had adjusted his reading lamp (he had announced that he was going to read), and had then left him. They were to return at ten o'clock and help him to bed; for Lanse was obliged to keep early hours, the night was the dangerous time, and one of the men always slept on a cot bed in the room with him, so as to be within call.
Margaret was sitting near the larger table, where there was a second lamp; she was sewing. Having thrown down his volume, with the sudden realization (it came to him occasionally) that he knew every word of it before beginning, Lanse sat among his cushions, watching her hand come and go.
"You are always sewing on such long things!" he said. "What is the use of your doing that sort of work nowadays, when there are sewing-machines?"
"That's like the American who asked, in Venice, what was the use of people's sketching there nowadays, when there were photographs?"
"Oh, your seam is a work of art, is it?" said Lanse. He was silent for a moment. Then he took up an old grievance. "Evert is abominably selfish not to come over here oftener. He might just as well come over and stay; do you know any earthly reason why he shouldn't?"
"I suppose he thinks he ought not to leave Aunt Katrina – I mean for any length of time."
"He comes for no length, long or short. Aunt Katrina? I thought you said she'd got a lot of people?"
"Only Mrs. Carew."
"Mrs. Carew and five or six servants; that's enough in all conscience. I shouldn't care in the least about Evert if it weren't for the evenings, they're confoundedly long, you must admit that they are – for a person who doesn't sew seams; if I had Ev here I could at least beat him at checkers, – that would be something."
Checkers was the only game Lanse would play, he hated games generally. His method of playing this one was hopelessly bad. That made no difference in his being convinced that it was excellent. He blustered over it always.
Margaret had not answered. After a while, still idly watching her hand come and go, Lanse began to laugh. "No, I'll tell you what it really is, Madge; I know it as well as if he had drawn up a formal indictment and signed his name; he's all off with me on account of the way I've treated you."
She started; but she kept on taking her stitches.
"Yes. What do you say to my having told him the whole story – just what really happened, and without a shade of excusing myself in any way? Don't you call that pretty good of me? But I found out, too, what I didn't know before – that you yourself have never said a word all this time either to him or to Aunt Katrina; that you have told nothing. I call that pretty good of you; I dare say, in the mean while, Aunt Katrina has led you a life!"
"I haven't minded that – she didn't know – "
"It was really very fine of you," said Lanse, appreciatively, after a moment or two of silence, during which he had seemed to review her course, and to sincerely admire it. "It would have been so easy to have considered it your duty to tell, to have called the telling 'setting yourself right;' everybody would have been on your side – would have taken your part. But I can't say, after all, that I'm surprised," he went on. "I have always had the most perfect confidence in you, Madge. If I hadn't, I shouldn't have been so easy, of course, about going away; but I knew I could leave you, I knew I could trust you; I knew you would always be the perfect creature you have shown yourself to be."
"I'm not perfect at all," answered Margaret, throwing her work down with a movement that was almost fierce. "Don't talk to me in that way."
"There! no need to flash out so; remember I'm only a cripple," responded Lanse, amiably. He sat there stroking his short beard with his strong, well-shaped hand, looking at her, as he did so, with some curiosity.
She rose. "Is there anything I can do for you before I go?" And she began to fold up her work.
"Oh, don't go! that's inhuman; it's only a little after nine – there's nearly an hour yet before the executioners come. I didn't mean to vex you, Madge; really I didn't. I know perfectly that you have done what you did, behaved as you have – so admirably (you must excuse my saying it again) – to please yourself, not me; you did it because you thought it right, and you don't want my thanks for it; you don't even want my admiration, probably you haven't a very high opinion of my admiration. I don't condole with you – you may have noticed that; the truth is, you have had your liberty, you have been rid of me, and there has been no disagreeable gossip about it. If you had loved me, there would have been the grief and all that to consider. But there has been no grief; you probably know now, though you didn't then, that you never seriously cared for me at all; of course you thought you did."
Margaret was standing, her folded work in her hand, ready to leave the room. "I should – I should have tried," she answered, her eyes turned away.
"Tried? Of course you would have tried, poor child," responded Lanse, laughing. "I should have had that spectacle! You were wonderfully good, you had a great sense of duty; you really married me from duty – because I told you that I should go to the bad without you, and you believed it, and thought you must try; and you mistook the interest you felt in me on that account for affection – a very natural mistake at your age. Never mind all that now, I only want you to admit that I might have been worse, I might have been brutal, tyrannical, in petty ways, I might have been a pig; instead of leaving you as I did, I might have stayed at home – and made you wish that I had left! Even now I scarcely touch your personal liberty; true, I ask you to keep house for me, set up a home and make me comfortable again; but outside of that I leave you very free, you shall do quite as you please. Luckily we've got money enough – that is, you have – not to be forced to sacrifice ourselves about trifles; if you want your breakfast at eight o'clock, and I mine at eleven, why, we can have it in that way; it won't be necessary for us to change our customs in the very least for each other, and I assure you in the long-run that tells. It's possible, of course, that you may hate me; but I don't believe you do; and, in case you don't, I see no reason why we shouldn't lead an easy life together. Really, looking at it in that way, it's a very pretty little prospect – for people of sense."
As he concluded with these words, genially uttered, Margaret dropped suddenly into a chair which was near her and covered her face with her hands.
Lanse looked at her, there was genuine kindness in his beautiful dark eyes with the yellow lights in them. "There's one question I might ask you, Margaret – but no, I won't; it's really none of my business. You will always act like an angel; your thoughts are your own affair."
Margaret still sat motionless, her face covered.
"I'm very sorry you feel so; I meant to be – I want to be – as considerate as possible. Great heavens!" Lanse went on, "what a fettered, restricted existence you women – the good ones – do lead! I have the greatest sympathy for you. When you're wretched, you can't do anything; you can't escape, and you can't take any of the compensations men take when they want to balance ill luck in other directions; all you can do is – sit still and bear it! I wonder you endure it as you do. But I won't talk about it, talking's all rot; short of killing myself, I don't know that there's anything I can do that would improve the situation; and that wouldn't be of any use either, at least to you, because it would leave you feeling guilty, and guilt you could never bear. Come, hold up your head, Madge; nothing in this stupid life is worth feeling so wretched about; life's nothing but rubbish, after all. Get the checker-board and we'll have a game."
Margaret had risen. "I can't to-night."
"But what am I to do, then?" began Lanse, in a complaining tone. He was as good as his word, he had already dismissed the subject from his mind. "Well, if you must go," he went on, "just hand me that book of poor Malleson's, first."
This was a book of sketches of the work of Mino da Fiesole, the loving, patient studies of a young American who had died in Italy years before, when Lanse was there. Lanse had been kind to him, at the last had closed his eyes, and had then laid him to sleep in that lovely shaded cemetery under the shadow of the pyramid outside the walls of Rome – sweet last resting-place that lingers in many a traveller's memory. The book of sketches had been left to him, and he was very fond of it.
As Margaret gave it to him he saw her face more clearly, saw the traces of tears under the dark lashes. "Yes, go and rest," he said, compassionately; "go to bed. I should reproach myself very much if I thought it was waiting upon me, care about me, that had tired you so."
"No, I have very little to do; the men do everything," Margaret answered. "I haven't half as much to attend to here as I have at home." She seemed to wish to reassure him on this point.
"At home?" said Lanse, jocularly. "What are you talking about? This is your home, isn't it? – wherever I happen to be."
But evidently his wife's self-control had been rudely shaken when her tears had mastered her, for now she could not answer him, she turned and left the room.
"Courage!" he called after her as she went towards the door. "You should do as I do – not mind trifles; you should shake them off."
She went with a swift step to her own room, and threw herself face downward upon a low couch, her head resting upon her clasped hands; the sudden movement loosened her hair, soon it began to slip from its fastenings and drop over her shoulders in a thick, soft, perfumed mass; then, falling forward, lock by lock, the long ends touched the floor.
As she lay thus behind her bolted doors, fighting with an unhappiness so deep that her whole heart was sobbing and crying, though now she did not shed outwardly a tear, her husband, stroking his brown beard meditatively, was getting a great deal of enjoyment out of poor Malleson's book. Lanse had a very delicate taste in such matters; he knew a beautiful outline when he saw it, from a single palmetto against the blue, on a point in the St. John's, to these low reliefs of the sweetest sculptor of the Renaissance. Long before, he had told Margaret that he married her for her profile; slim, unformed girl as she was, there had been, from the first moment he saw her, an immense satisfaction for his eyes in the poise of her head and the clearness of her features every time she entered the room.
Whether he would have found any satisfaction in these same outlines, could he have seen them prone in their present abandonment, only himself could have told.
He would have said, probably, that he found no satisfaction at all. Lansing Harold, as has been remarked before, had a great deal of benevolence.