From that day on a bright undercurrent made bearable the trying
monotony of her life. Rachael did not at once recognize the rapid
change that began to take place in her own feelings, but she did
realize that Warren Gregory's attitude had altered everything in her
world. He was flirting, of course, he was only half in earnest; but it
was such delicious flirting, it was a half-earnestness so wonderfully
satisfying and sweet.
She did not see him every day, sometimes she did not see him for two or
three days, but no twenty-four hours went by without a message from
him. A day or two after the troubled Sunday on which he had driven her
home she stood silent a moment, in the lower hall, one hand resting on
the little box of damp, delicious Freesia lilies, the fingers of the
other twisting his card. The little message scribbled on the card meant
nothing to other eyes, just the two words "Good morning!" but in some
subtle way they signified to her a morning in a wider sense, a dawning
of love and joy and peace in her life. The next day they met--and how
wonderful these casual meetings among a hundred gay, unseeing folk, had
suddenly become!--and on the following day he came to tea with her, a
little hour whose dramatic and emotional beauty was enhanced rather
than spoiled for them both when Clarence and Billy and some friends
came in to end it.
On Thursday the doctor's man delivered into Mrs. Breckenridge's hand a
package which proved to be a little book on Browning of which he had
spoken to her. On the fly leaf was written in the donor's small, fine
handwriting, "R. from G. The way WAS Caponsacchi." Rachael put the book
on her bedside table, and wore June colors all day for the giver's
sake. Greg, she thought with a fluttering heart, was certainly taking
things with rather a high hand. Could it be possible, could it be
POSSIBLE, that he cared for a woman at last, and was she, Rachael
Breckenridge, a neglected wife, a penniless dependent upon an unloving
husband, that woman?
Half-forgotten emotions of girlhood began to stir within her; she
flushed, smiled, sighed at her own thoughts, she dreamed, and came
bewildered out of her dreams, like a child. What Clarence did, what
Carol did, mattered no longer; she, Rachael, again had the centre of
the stage.
Weeks flew by. The question of summer plans arose: the Villalongas
wanted all the Breckenridges in their Canadian camp for as much as
possible of July and August. Clarence regarded the project with the
embittered eye of utter boredom, Billy was far from enthusiastic,
Rachael made no comment. She stood, like a diver, ready for the
chilling plunge from which she might never rise, yet, after which,
there was one glorious chance: she might find herself swimming strongly
to freedom. The sunny, safe meadows and the warm, blue sky were there
in sight, there was only that dark and menacing stretch of waters to
breast, that black, smothering descent to endure.
Now was the time. The pretence that was her married life must end, she
must be free. In her thought she went no farther. Rachael outwardly was
no better than the other women of her world; inwardly there was in her
nature an instinctive niceness, a hatred for what was coarse or base.
For years the bond between her and Clarence Breckenridge had been only
an empty word. But it was there, none the less, and before she could
put any new plan into definite form, even in her own heart, it must be
broken.
Many of the women she knew would not have been so fine. For more than
one of them no tie was sacred, and no principle as strong as their own
desire for pleasure. But she was different, as all the world should
see. No carefully chaperoned girl could be more carefully guarded than
Rachael would be guarded by herself until that time--the thought of it
put her senses to utter rout--until such time as she might put her hand
boldly in Gregory's, and take her place honorably by his side.
The taste of freedom already began to intoxicate her even while she
still went about Clarence's house, bore his moods in silence, and
imparted to Billy that half-scornful, half-humorous advice that alone
seemed to penetrate the younger woman's shell of utter perversity. Mrs.
Breckenridge, as usual followed by admiring and envious and curious
eyes, walked in a world of her own, entirely oblivious of the persons
and events about her, wrapped in a breathless dream too exquisitely
bright to be real.
It was a dream still so simple and vague that she was not conscious of
wishing for Warren Gregory's presence, or of being much happier when
they were together than when she was deliciously alone with her
thoughts of him.
About a month after the Whittaker tea Rachael found herself seated in
the tile-floored tea-room at the country club with Florence. There had
been others in the group, theoretically for tea, but these were
scattered now, and among the various bottles and glasses on the table
there was no sign of a teacup.
"So glad to see you alone a moment, Rachael--one never does," said
Florence. "Tell me, do you go to the Villalongas'?"
"Clarence and Billy will, I suppose," the other woman said with an
enigmatic smile.
"But not you?"
"Perhaps; I don't know, Florence." Rachael's serene eyes roved the
summer landscape contentedly. Mrs. Haviland looked a little puzzled.
"Things are better, aren't they, dear?" she asked delicately.
"Things?"
"Between you and Clarence, I mean."
"Oh! Yes, perhaps they are. Changed, perhaps."
"How do you mean changed?" Florence was instantly in arms.
"Well, it couldn't go on that way forever, Florence," Rachael said
pleasantly.
Rendered profoundly uneasy by her tone, the other woman was silent for
a moment.
"Perhaps it is just as well to make different plans for the summer,"
she said presently. "We all get on each other's nerves sometimes, and
change or separation does us a world of good."
"Doctor Gregory! Doctor Gregory! At the telephone!" chanted a club
attendant, passing through the tea-room.
"On the tennis courts," Mrs. Breckenridge said, without turning her
head. "You had better make it a message: explain that he's playing!"
"I didn't see him go down," remarked Florence, diverted.
"His car came in about half an hour ago; he and Joe Butler went down to
the courts without coming into the club at all," Rachael said.
"I wonder what he's doing this summer?" mused the older lady.
"I believe he's going to take his mother abroad with him," said the
well-informed Rachael. "She'll visit some friends in England and
Ireland, and then join him. He's to do the Alps with someone, and meet
her in Rome."
"She tell you?" asked Mrs. Haviland, interested.
"He did," the other said briefly.
"I didn't know she had any friends," was Florence's next comment. "I
don't see her visiting, somehow!"
"Oh, my dear. Old Catholic families with chapels in their houses, and
nuns, and Mother Superiors!" Rachael's tone was light, but as she spoke
a cold premonition seized her heart. She fell silent.
A moment later Charlotte, who had been hovering uncertainly in the
doorway of the room, came out to join her mother with a brightly
spontaneous air.
"Oh, here you are, M'ma!" said Charlotte. "Are you ready to go?"
"Been having a nice time, dear?" her mother asked fondly.
"Very," Charlotte said. "I've been looking over old magazines in the
library--SO interesting!"
This literary enthusiasm struck no answering spark from the matron.
"In the library!" said Florence quickly. "Why, I thought you were with
Charley!"
"Oh, no, M'ma," answered Charlotte, with her little air that was not
quite prim and not quite mincing, and that yet suggested both. "Charley
left me just after you did; he had an engagement with Straker." She
reached for a macaroon, and ate it with a brightly disengaged air, her
eyes, behind their not unbecoming glasses, studying the golf links with
absorbed interest.
"Anyone else in the library?" Florence asked in a dissatisfied tone.
"No. I had it all to myself!" the girl answered pleasantly.
"Why didn't you go down to the courts, dear? I think Papa is playing!"
"I didn't think of it, M'ma," said Charlotte lucidly.
"What a dreadful age it is," mused Rachael. "I wonder which phase is
hardest to deal with: Billy or poor little Carlotta?" Aloud, from the
fulness of her own happiness, she said: "Suppose you walk down to the
courts with me, Infant, and we will see what's going on?"
"If M'ma doesn't object," said the dutiful daughter.
"No, go along," Florence said with vague discontent. "I've got to do
some telephoning, anyway."
Charlotte, being eighteen, could think of nothing but herself, and
Rachael, wrapped in her own romance, was amused, as they walked along,
to see how different her display of youthful egotism was from Billy's,
and yet how typical of all adolescence.
"Isn't it a wonderful afternoon, Aunt Rachael?" Charlotte said, as one
in duty bound to be entertaining. "I do think they've picked out such a
charming site for the club!" And then, as Rachael did not answer, being
indeed content to drink in the last of the long summer day in silence,
Charlotte went on, with an air blended of comprehension and amusement:
"Poor M'ma, she would so like me to be a little, fluffy, empty-headed
butterfly of a girl, and I know I disappoint her! It isn't that I don't
like boys," pursued Charlotte, the smooth and even stream of her words
beginning to remind Rachael of Florence, "or that they don't like me;
they're always coming to me with their confidences and asking my
advice, but it's just that I can't take them seriously. If a boy wants
to kiss me, why, I say to him in perfect good faith, 'Why shouldn't you
kiss me, John? When I'm fond of a person I always like to kiss him, and
I'm sure I'm fond of you!'" Charlotte stopped for a short laugh full of
relish. "Of course that takes the wind out of their sails completely,"
she went on, "and we have a good laugh over it, and are all the better
friends! That is," said Charlotte, thoroughly enjoying herself, "I
treat my men friends exactly as I do my girl friends. Do you think
that's so extraordinary, Aunt Rachael? Because I can't do anything
different, you know--really I can't!"
"Just be natural--that's the best way," said Rachael from the depths of
an icy boredom.
"Of course, some day I shall marry," the girl added in brisk decision,
"because I love a home, and I love children, and I think I would be a
good mother to children. But meanwhile, my books and my friends mean a
thousand times more to me than all these stupid boys! Why is it other
girls are so crazy about boys, Aunt Rachael?" asked Charlotte, brightly
sensible. "Of course I like them, and all that, but I can't see the
sense of all these notes and telephones and flirtations. I told Vivvie
Sartoris that I was afraid I knew all these boys too well; of course
Jack and Kent and Charley are just like brothers! It all"--Charlotte
smiled, signed, shook her disillusioned young head--"it all seems so
awfully SILLY to me!" she said, and before Rachael could speak she had
caught breath again and added laughingly: "Of course I know Billy
doesn't agree with me, and Billy has plenty of admiration of a sort,
and I suppose that satisfies her! But, in short," finished Charlotte,
giving Rachael's arm a squeeze as they came out upon the tennis courts,
"in short, you have an exacting little niece, Auntie dear, and I'm
afraid the man who is going to make her happy must be out of the
ordinary!"
Rachael sighed a long deep sigh, but no other answer was demanded, for
the knot of onlookers welcomed them eagerly to the benches beside the
courts, and even the players--Gardner Haviland, Louis Chase, a fat
young man in an irreproachable tennis costume; Warren Gregory and Joe
Butler found time for a shouted "Hello!"
"How do you do, Kent?" said Charlotte to a young man who was sprawling
on the sloping grass between the benches and the court. The young man
blinked, sat up, and snatched off his hat.
"Oh, how do you do, Charlotte? I didn't know you were here," he said
enthusiastically. "Some game--what?"
"It SEEMS to be," said Charlotte with smiling, deep significance. Both
young persons laughed heartily at this spirited exchange. A silence
fell. Then Mr. Parmalee turned back to watch the players, and
Charlotte, who had seated herself, leaned back in her seat and gave a
devoted attention to the game.
Gregory came to Rachael the instant the game was over; she had known,
since the first triumphant instant when his eyes fell upon her, that he
would. She had seen the color rush under his brown skin, and, alone
among all the onlookers, had known why Greg put three balls into the
net, and why he laughed so inexplicably as he did so. And Rachael
thought, for the first time, how sweet it would be to be his wife, to
sit here lovely in lavender stripes and loose white coat: Warren
Gregory's wife.
"You mustn't do that," he said, sitting down on the bench beside her,
and wiping his hot face.
"Mustn't do what?" she asked.
"Mustn't turn up suddenly when I don't expect you. It makes me dizzy.
Look here--what are you doing? I'm going up to the pool. I've got to
get back into town to-night. When can I see you?"
"Why"--Rachael rose slowly, and slowly unfurled her parasol--"why,
suppose we walk up together?"
They strolled away from the courts deliberately, openly. Several
persons remembered weeks later that they went slowly, stopped now and
then. No one thought much of it at the time, for only a week later
Doctor Gregory took his mother to England, and during that week it was
ascertained that he and Mrs. Breckenridge saw each other only once, and
then were in the presence of his mother and of Carol Breckenridge and
young Charles Gregory as well. There was no tiniest peg for gossip to
hang scandal upon, for where old Mrs. James Gregory was, decorum of an
absolutely puritanic order prevailed.
Yet that stroll across the grass of the golf links was a milestone in
Rachael Breckenridge's life, and every word that passed between Gregory
and herself was graven upon her heart for all time. The aspect of
laughter, of flirtation, was utterly absent to-day. His tone was crisp
and serious, he spoke almost before they were out of the hearing of the
group on the courts.
"I've been wanting to talk to you, Rachael; in fact"--he laughed
briefly--"in fact, I am talking to you all day long, these days," he
said, "arguing and consulting and advising and planning. But before we
can talk, there's Clarence. What about Clarence?"
Something in the gravity of his expression as their eyes met impressed
Rachael as she had rarely been impressed in her life before. He was in
deadly earnest, he had planned his campaign, and he must take the first
step by clearing the way. How sure he was, how wonderfully, quietly
certain of his course.
"We are facing a miserable situation, but it's a commonplace one, after
all," said Warren Gregory, as she did not speak. "I--you can see the
position I'm in. I have to ask you to be free before I can move. I
can't go to Breckenridge's wife---"
The color burned in both their faces as they looked at each other.
"It IS a miserable position, Greg," Rachael said, after a moment's
silence. "And although, as you say, it's commonplace enough, somehow I
never thought before just what this sort of thing involves! However,
the future must take care of itself. For the present there's only this.
I'm going to leave Clarence."
Warren Gregory drew a long breath.
"He won't fight it?"
"I don't think he will." Rachael frowned. "I think he'll be willing to
furnish--the evidence. Especially if he has no reason to suspect that I
have any other plans," she added thoughtfully.
"Then he mustn't suspect," the doctor said instantly.
"Nor anyone," she finished, with a look of alarm.
"Nor anyone, of course," he repeated.
"I don't know that I HAVE any other plans," Rachael said sadly. "I
won't think beyond that one thing. Our marriage has been an utter and
absolute failure, we are both wretched. It must end. I hate the fuss,
of course--"
He was watching her closely, too keenly tuned to her mood to disquiet
her with any hint of the lover's attitude now.
"And just how will you go about it?" he asked.
"I shall slip off to some quiet place, I think. I'll tell him before he
goes away. My attorneys will handle the matter for me--it's a sickening
business!" Rachael's beautiful face expressed distaste.
"It's done every day," Warren Gregory said.
"Of course divorce is not a new idea to me" Rachael presently pursued.
"But it is only in the last two or three days--for a week,
perhaps--that it has seemed to have that inevitable quality--that
the-sooner-over-the-better sort of urgency. I wonder why I didn't do it
years ago. I shall"--she laughed sadly--"I shall hate myself as a
divorced woman," she said. "It's a survival of some old instinct, I
suppose, but it doesn't seem RIGHT."
"It's done all the time," was the doctor's simple defence. "And oh, my
dear," he added, "you will know--and I will know--we can't keep
knowing--"
She stopped short, her lovely face serious in the shade of her parasol,
her dark-blue eyes burning with a sort of noble shame.
"Greg!" she said quickly and breathlessly. "Please---Let's not--let's
not say it. Let me feel, all this summer, that it wasn't said. Let me
feel that while I was living under one man's roof, and spending his
money, that I didn't even THINK of another man. It's done all the time,
you say, that's true. But I HATE it. Whether I leave Clarence, and make
my own life under new conditions, and never remarry, or whether, in a
year or two--but I won't think of that!" And to his surprise and
concern, as she stopped short on the grassy path, the eyes that Rachael
turned toward him were brimming with tears. "You s-see what a baby I am
becoming, Greg," she said unsteadily. "It's all your doing, I'm afraid!
I haven't cried for years--loneliness and injustice and unhappiness
don't make me cry! But just lately I've known what it was to dream
of--of joy, Greg. And if that joy is ever really coming to us, I want
to be worthy of it. I want to start RIGHT this time. I want to spend
the summer quietly somewhere, thinking and reading. I'm going to give
up cards and even cocktails. You smile, Greg, but I truly am! Just for
this time, I mean. And it's come to me, just lately, that I wouldn't
leave Clarence if he really needed me, or if it would make him unhappy.
I'm going to be different--everything SEEMS different already--"
"Don't you know why?" he said with his grave smile, as she paused. It
was enchanting to him to see the color flood her face, to see her shy
eyes suddenly averted. She did not answer, and they walked slowly
toward the clubhouse steps.
"There's only one thing more to say," Warren Gregory said, arresting
her for one more moment. "It's this: as soon as you're free, I'm coming
for you. You may not have made up your mind by that time, Rachael. My
mind will never change."
Shaken beyond all control by his tone, Rachael did not even raise her
eyes. Her flush died away, leaving her face pale. He saw her breast
rise on a quick breath.
"Will you write me?" he asked, after a moment.
"Oh, yes, Greg!" she answered quickly, in a voice hardly above a
whisper. "When do you go?"
"On Wednesday--a week from to-day, in fact. And that reminds me, Billy
says you are coming into town early next week?"
"Monday, probably." Rachael was coming back to the normal. "She needs
things for camp, and I've got a little shopping to do."
"Then could you lunch with Mother? Little Charley'll be there: no one
else. Bring Billy. Mother'd love it. You're a great favorite there, you
know."
"I may not always be a favorite there," Rachael said with a rueful
smile.
"Don't worry about Mother," Warren Gregory said with a confidence that
in this moment of excitement and exhilaration he almost felt was
justified. "Mother's a dear!"
That was all their conversation. When they entered the clubhouse Doctor
Gregory turned toward the swimming pool and Rachael was instantly drawn
into a game of bridge. She played like a woman in a dream, was joined
by Billy, went home in a dream, and presently found herself and her
husband fellow guests at a dreamlike dinner-party.
Why not?--why not?--why not? The question drummed in head and heart day
and night. Why not end bondage, and taste freedom? Why not end
unhappiness, and try joy? She had done her best to make her first
marriage a success, and she had failed. Why not, with all kindness,
with all generous good wishes, end the long experiment? Who, in all her
wide range of acquaintances, would think the less of her for the
obviously sensible step? The world recognized divorce as an
indispensable institution: one marriage in every twelve was dissolved.
And remarriage, a brilliant second marriage, was universally approved.
Even such a stern old judge as Warren's mother counted among her
acquaintances the divorced and remarried. To reappear, triumphant,
beloved, beautiful, before one's old world--
But no--of this Rachael would not permit herself to think. Time alone
could tell what her next step must be. The only consideration now must
be that, even if Warren Gregory had never existed, even if there were
no other man than Clarence Breckenridge in the world, she must take the
step. Better poverty, and work, and obscurity, if need be, with
freedom, than all Clarence could offer her in this absurd and empty
bondage.
Once firmly decided, she began to chafe against the delays that made an
immediate announcement of her intentions unwise. If a thing was to be
done, as well do it quickly, thought Rachael, as she listened patiently
to the vacillating decisions of Carol and her father in regard to the
Villalonga camping plan. At one time Clarence completely abandoned the
idea, throwing the watchful and silent Rachael into utter
consternation. Carol was alternately bored by the plan and wearily
interested in it. Their characteristic absorption in their own comfort
was a great advantage to Rachael at this particular juncture; she had
been included in Mrs. Villalonga's invitation as a matter of course,
but such was the life of the big, luxurious establishment known as the
"camp" that all three of the Breckenridges, and three more of them had
there been so many, might easily have spent six weeks therein without
crossing each other's paths more than once or twice a week. It never
occurred to either Carol or her father to question Rachael closely as
to her pleasure in the matter. They took it for granted that she would
be there if no pleasanter invitation interfered exactly as they
themselves would.
An enormous income enabled the sprightly Mrs. Villalonga to conduct her
midsummer residence in the Canadian forests upon a scale that may only
be compared to a hotel. She usually asked about one hundred friends to
visit her for an indefinite time, and of this number perhaps half
availed themselves of the privilege, drifting in upon her at any time,
remaining only while the spirit moved, and departing unceremoniously,
perhaps, if the hostess chanced to be away at the moment, with no
farewells at all, when any pleasanter prospect offered.
Mrs. Villalonga was a large, coarse-voiced woman, with a heart of gold,
and the facial characteristics that in certain unfortunate persons
suggest nothing so much as a horse. She sent a troop of servants up to
the woods every year, following them in a week or two with her first
detachment of guests. She paid her chef six thousand dollars a year,
and would have paid more for a better chef, if there had been one. She
expected three formal meals every day, including in their scope every
delicacy that could be procured at any city hotel, and also an
indefinite number of lesser meals, to be served in tennis pavilion, or
after cards at night, or whenever a guest arrived.
By the time she reached the camp everything must be complete for
another summer, awnings flapping gently outside the striped canvas
"tents" that were really roomy cabins provided with shower baths and
wide piazzas. The great cement-walled swimming pool must be cleaned,
the courts rolled, the cars all in order, the boats and bath-houses in
readiness. A miniature grocery and drug store must be established in
the building especially designed for this use; the little laundry
concealed far up in the woods must be operating briskly.
Then, from the middle of June to the first of September, the camp was
in full swing. There were dances and campfires and theatricals and
fancy-dress affairs innumerable. Ice and champagne and California
peaches and avocados from Hawaii poured from the housekeeping
department in an unending stream; there were new toothbrushes and new
pajamas for the unexpected guest, there were new bathing suits in boxes
for the girls who had driven over from Taramac House and who wanted a
swim, there were new packs of cards and new boxes of cigars, and there
were maids--maids--maids to run for these things when they were wanted,
and carry them away when their brief use was over.
Then it would be September, and everything would end as suddenly as it
began. The Villalongas would go to Europe, or to Newport, Vera loudly,
joyously, insistently urging everyone to visit them there if it were
the latter. In November they would be in their town house with new
paintings and new rugs to show their guests: a portrait of Vera, a rug
stolen from a Sultan's palace.
Everybody said that Vera Villalonga did this sort of thing extremely
well; indeed she had no rival in her own particular field. The weekly
society journals depended upon her to supply them with spectacular
pictures of a Chinese ball every November and a Micareme dance every
spring; they sent photographers all the way up to her camp that their
readers might not miss a yearly glimpse of the way Mrs. Villalonga
entertained.
But Rachael, who had spent a portion of six summers with the
Villalongas, found herself, in her newly analytical mood, wondering
just who got any particular pleasure out of it all. Vera herself,
perhaps. Certainly her husband, who would spend all his time playing
poker and tennis, would have been as happy elsewhere. Her two sons,
tall, dark young men, in connection with whose characters the world in
general contented itself merely with the word "wild," would be there
only for a week or two at most. Billy would wait for Joe Pickering's
letters, Clarence would drink, and watch Billy. Little Mina Villalonga,
who had a minor nervous ailment, would wander about after Billy. The
Parmalees would come up for a visit, and the Morans would come. Jack
Torrence, spoiled out of all reason, would promise a week and come for
two days; Porter Pinckard would compromise upon a mere hour or two,
charging into the camp in his racing car, introducing hilarious
friends, accepting a sandwich and a bottle of beer, and then tearing
off again. Straker Thomas, silent, mysterious, ill, would drift about
for a week or two; Peter Pomeroy would go up late in July, and be
adored by everyone, and take charge of the theatricals.
"The maids probably get any amount of fun out of it," mused Rachael.
Vera was notably generous to her servants: a certain pool was reserved
for them, and their numbers formed a most congenial society every
summer. "I don't believe I'll go to Vera's this year," Mrs.
Breckenridge said aloud to her husband and stepdaughter.
"I'm not crazy about it," Billy agreed fretfully.
"Might as well," was the man's enthusiastic contribution.
"Oh, I'm GOING!" Billy said discontentedly. "But I don't see why you
and Rachael have to go."
"Don't you?" her father said significantly.
"Joe Pickering's going to be in Texas this whole summer, if that's what
you mean!" flamed Billy.
"I'm glad to hear it," Clarence commented.
"Anyway, you might depend upon Vera to take absolute good care of
Bill," Rachael said soothingly. "It's time you both got away to some
cooler place, if you are going to fight so about nothing! Why do you do
it? Billy can't marry anyone for eleven months, and if she wants to
marry the man in the moon then you can't stop her. So there you are!"
"And I'm capable of running my own affairs," finished Billy with a look
far from filial.
"You only waste your breath arguing with Clarence when he's got one of
his headaches," Rachael said to her stepdaughter an hour or two later
when they were spinning smoothly into the city for the planned
shopping. "Of course he'll go to Vera's, and of course you'll go, too!
Just don't tease him when he's all upset."
"Well, what does he drink and smoke so much, and get this way for?"
Billy demanded sullenly.
"What does anybody do it for?" Rachael countered. And a second later
her singing heart was with Gregory again. He did not do it!
She entered into Billy's purchasing perplexities with great sympathy; a
successful hat was found, several deliciously extravagant and fragile
dresses for camping.
"You're awfully decent about all this, Rachael." Billy said once; "it
must be a sweet life we lead you sometimes!"
Something in the girl's young glance touched Rachael strangely. They
were in the car again now, going toward Mrs. Gregory's handsome,
old-fashioned house on Washington Square. Rachael was inspired to seize
the propitious second.
"Listen, Bill," she said, and paused. Billy eyed her curiously. Obtuse
as she was, a certain change in Rachael had not entirely escaped the
younger woman.
"Well?" she asked, on guard.
"Well--" Rachael faltered. Motherly advice was not much in her line.
"It's just this, Bill," she resumed slowly, "when you think of
marriage, don't think of just a few weeks or a few months; think of all
the time. Think of other things than just--that sort of--love.
Children, you know, and--and books, don't you know? Things that count.
Be--I don't say be guided entirely by what your father and lots of
other persons think, but be influenced by it! Realize that we have no
motive but--but affection, in advising you to be sure."
The stumbling, uncertain words were unlike Mrs. Breckenridge's usual
certain flow of reasoning. But in spite of this, or because of it,
Billy was somewhat impressed.
"I had an aunt in California," Rachael continued, "who cried, and got
whipped and locked up, and all the rest of it, and she carried her
point. But she was unhappy. ..."
"You mean because Joe is divorced?" Billy asked in a somewhat troubled
voice.
The scarlet rushed to Rachael's face.
"N--not entirely," she answered in some confusion.
"That is, you don't think divorced people ought to remarry, even if the
divorce is fair enough?" Billy pursued, determined to be clear.
"Well, I suppose every case is different, Bill."
"That's what you've always SAID!" Billy accused her vivaciously. "You
said, time and time again, that if people can't live together in peace
they OUGHT to separate, but that it was another thing if they married
again!"
"Did I?" Rachael asked weakly, adding a moment later, with obvious
relief in her tone: "Here we are! It's only this, Bill," she finished,
as they mounted the brownstone steps, "be sure. You can do anything, I
suppose. Only be sure!"
Mrs. Gregory would be down in a few minutes, old Dennison said. Rachael
murmured something amiable, and the two went into the dark, handsome
parlors; the house was full of parlors; on both sides of the hall
stately, crowded rooms could be glimpsed through open doors.
"Isn't it fierce?" Billy said with a helpless shrug. Rachael smiled and
shook her head slowly in puzzled consent. "Don't you suppose they ever
AIR it?" pursued the younger woman in a low tone. The air had a
peculiarly close, dry smell.
"It wouldn't seem so," Rachael said, looking at the life-size statues
of Moorish and Neopolitan girls, the mantel clock representing a Dutch
windmill, the mantel itself, of black marble, gilded and columned, with
a mirror in a carved walnut frame stretching ten feet above it, the
beaded fire screen, the voluminous window curtains of tasselled rep,
and the ornate walnut table across whose marble top a strip of lace had
been laid. Everything was ugly and expensive and almost everything was
old-fashioned, all the level surfaces of tables, mantel, and piano top
were filled with small articles, bits of ivory carving from China,
leather boxes, majolica jars, photographs in heavy frames, enormous
illustrated books, candlesticks, and odd teacups and trays.
Smiling down--how Rachael knew that smile, half-quizzical and
half-tender--from a corner of the room was a beautiful oil portrait of
Warren Gregory, the one really fine thing in the room. By some chance
the painter had caught on his face the very look with which he might,
in the flesh, have studied this dreadful room. Rachael felt a thrill go
to her heels as she looked back at the canvas, and far down in the
deeps of her being the thought stirred that some day her hand might be
the one to change all this--to make the woodwork colonial white, and
the paper rich with color, to have the black marble changed to creamy
tiles, and the rep curtains torn away. Then how charming the place
would be when visitors came in from the hot street!
"A million apologies--all my fault!" said Doctor Gregory in the
doorway. His mother, in rustling black silk, was on his arm. She had
given up her cane to-day to use the living support, and no lover could
have wished to appear more charming in his lady's eyes than did Warren
Gregory appear to Rachael as he lowered the frail old figure to a chair
and neglected his guests while he made his mother comfortable.
"He would have you think, now, that I was the cause of the delay," said
the old lady in a sweet voice that betrayed curiously the weakness of
the flesh and the strength of the spirit. "But I assure you my beauty
is no longer a matter of great importance to me!"
"So it was Greg who was curling his hair?" Rachael asked, with one
swift and eloquent glance for him before she drew a much-fringed
hassock to his mother's knee and seated herself there with the
confidence of a captivating child. "I always thought he was rather
vain! But let's not talk about him, we only make him worse. Tell me
about yourself?"
Mrs. Gregory was a rather spirited old lady, and liked to fancy, with
the pathetic complacency of the passing generation, that her sense of
humor quite kept up with the times. Rachael knew her well, and knew all
her stories, but this only made her the pleasanter companion. She
quickly carried the conversation into the past, and was content to be a
listener; indeed, with a hostess far removed in type from herself it
was the only safe role to play. The conversation was full of pitfalls
for this charming and dutiful worldling, and Rachael was too clever to
risk a fall.
She was afraid of the crippled little gentlewoman in the big chair, and
Warren Gregory was afraid, too. Some mysterious element in her regard
for them made luncheon an ordeal for them both, although Billy's
healthy young eyes saw only an old woman, impotent and alone; the maids
were respectful and pitying, and young Charles Gregory, who joined them
at luncheon, Was obviously unimpressed by his grandmother's power, but
was smitten red and inarticulate at the first glimpse of Billy.
This youth, after silently disposing of several courses, finally asked
in a husky voice for Miss Charlotte Haviland, and relapsed into silence
again. Billy flirted youthfully with her host, Rachael devoted herself
to the old lady.
She had always been happy here, a marked favorite with old Mrs. Gregory
to whom her audacious nonsense had always seemed a great delight
before. But to-day she was conscious of a change, she could not control
the conversation with her usual sure touch, she floundered and
contradicted herself like a schoolgirl. One of her brilliant stories
fell rather flat because its humor was largely supplied by an
intoxicated man--"of course it was dreadful, but then it was funny,
too!" Rachael finished lamely. Another flashing account won from the
old hostess the single words "On Sunday?"
"Well, yes. It was on Sunday. I am afraid we are absolute pagans; we
don't always remember to go to church, by any means!" Rachael began to
feel that a cloud of midges were buzzing about her face. Every topic
led her deeper into the quicksand. There was a definite touch of
resentment under the gracious manner in which she presently said her
good-bye, and they were no sooner in the motor car than she exclaimed
to Billy:
"Didn't Mrs. Gregory seem horribly cross to you to-day? She made me
feel as if I'd broken all the Commandments and was dancing on the
pieces!"
"What do you know about Charles asking for Charlotte?" was Billy's only
answer. "Isn't he just the sort of mutt who would ask for Charlotte!"
"Isn't she quite lovely?" said Mrs. Gregory from over the fleecy yarn
she was knitting, when the guests had gone.
"Carol?" the doctor countered.
"Yes, Carol, too. But I was thinking of Mrs. Breckenridge. Do you see
her very often, James?"
"Quite a bit. Do you mind my smoking?"
"I often wonder," pursued the old lady innocently, "what such a sweet,
gay, lovely girl could see in a fellow like poor Clarence Breckenridge!"
"Great marvel she doesn't throw him over!" Warren said casually.
"It distresses me to hear you talk so recklessly, my son," Mrs. Gregory
said after a brief pause,
"Lord, Mother," her son presently observed impatiently, "is it
reasonable to expect that because a girl like that makes a mistake when
she is twenty or twenty-one, that she shall pay for it for the rest of
her life?"
"Unfortunately, we are not left in any doubt about it," the old lady
said dryly. And as Warren was silent she went on with quavering vigor:
"It is not for us to judge her husband's infirmities. She is his wife."
"Oh, well, there's no use arguing it," the man said pleasantly after a
sulphurous interval. "Fortunately for her, most people don't feel as
you do."
"You surely don't think that _I_ originated this theory?" his mother
asked quietly after a silence, during which her long needles moved a
little more swiftly than was natural.
"I don't think anything about it. I KNOW that you're much, much
narrower about such things than your religion or any religion gives you
any right to be," Warren asserted hotly. "It is nothing to me, but I
hate this smug parcelling out of other people's affairs," he went on.
"Mrs. Breckenridge is a very wonderful and a most unfortunate woman;
her husband isn't fit to lace her shoes--"
"All that may be true," his mother interrupted with some agitation.
"All that may be true, you say! And yet if Rachael left him, and tried
to find happiness somewhere else--"
"The law is not of MY making, James," the old lady intervened mildly,
noting his use of the discussed woman's name with a pang.
"But it IS of your making--you people who sit around and say what's
respectable and what's not respectable! Who are you to judge?"
"I try not to judge," Mrs. Gregory said so simply that the man's anger
cooled in spite of himself. "And perhaps I am foolish, James, all
mothers are. But you are the last of my four sons, and I am a widow in
my old age, and I tremble for you. When a woman with beauty as great as
that confides in you, my child, when she turns to you, your soul is in
danger, and your mother sees it. I cannot--I cannot be silent--"
Rachael herself, an hour ago, had not used her youth and beauty with
more definite design than was this other woman using her age and
infirmity now. Warren Gregory was almost as readily affected.
"My dear Mother," he said sensibly and charmingly, "don't think for one
instant that I do not appreciate your devotion to me. What has suddenly
put into your head this concern about Mrs. Breckenridge, I can't
imagine. I know that if she were ever in any trouble or need you would
be the first to defend her. She is in a peculiarly difficult position,
and in a professional way I am somewhat in her confidence, that's all!"
"I should think she could do something with Clarence," the old lady
said, somewhat mollified. "Interest him in something new; lead him away
from bad influences."
"Clarence is rather a hopeless problem," Warren Gregory said. The talk
drifted away to other persons and affairs, but when they presently
parted, with great amiability on both sides, Warren Gregory knew that
his mother's suspicions had in some mysterious way been aroused, and
old Mrs. Gregory, sitting alone in the heat of the afternoon, writhed
in the grip of a definite apprehension. Absurd--absurd--to interpret
that married woman's brightly innocent glances into a declaration of
love, absurd to find passion concealed in Warren's cheerfully
hospitable manner. But she could not shake off the terrified conviction
that it was so.
"Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Moulton of England have rented for the season
the house of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Breckenridge, at Belvedere Bay,"
stated the social columns authoritatively. "Mr. Breckenridge and Miss
Carol Breckenridge will leave at once for the summer camp of Mrs. Booth
Villalonga, at Elks Leap, where Mrs. Breckenridge will join them after
spending a few weeks with friends."
Rachael saw the notice on the morning of the last day that she and
Clarence were together. In the afternoon Billy and Clarence were to
leave for the north, and Rachael was to go to Florence for a day or
two. She had been unusually indefinite about her plans for the summer,
but in the general confusion of all plans this had not been noticed.
She had superintended the packing and assorting and storing of silver
and linen, as a matter of course, and it was easy to see that certain
things indisputably her own went into certain crates. Nobody questioned
her authority, and Clarence and Billy paid no attention whatever to the
stupid proceeding of getting the house in order for tenants.
On this last morning she sat at the breakfast table studying these two
who had been her companions for seven years, and who suspected so
little that this companionship was not to last for another seven years,
for an indefinite time. Billy was in a bad temper because her father
was not taking Alfred and the car with them to the camp, as he had done
for the two previous years. Clarence, sullen as always under Billy's
disapproval, was pretending to read his paper. He had a severe headache
this morning, his face looked flushed and swollen. He was dreading the
twenty-four hours in a hot train, even though the Bowditches, going up
in their own car to their own camp, had offered the Breckenridges its
comparative comfort and coolness for the entire trip.
"Makes me so sick," grumbled Billy, who looked extremely pretty in a
Chinese coat of blue and purple embroideries; "every time I want to
move I'll have to ask Aunt Vera if I may have a car! No fun at all!"
"Loads of horses and cars up there, my dear," Rachael said pacifically.
She was quivering from head to foot with nervous excitement; the next
few hours were all-important to her. And, under the pressure of her own
great emotions, Billy seemed only rather pitiful and young to-day, and
even Clarence less a conscious tyrant, and more a blundering boy, than
he had seemed. She bore them no ill will after these seven hard years;
indeed a great peace and kindliness pervaded her spirit and softened
her manner toward them both. Her marriage had been a great
disappointment, composed of a thousand small disappointments, but she
was surprised to find that some intangible and elementary emotion was
about to make this parting strangely hard.
"Yes, but it's not the same thing," Billy raged. Rachael began a
low-voiced reassurance to which the younger woman listened reluctantly,
scowling over her omelette, and interposing an occasional protest.
"Oh, yap--yap--yap! My God, I do get tired of hearing you two go on and
on and on!" Clarence presently burst out angrily. "If you don't want to
go, Billy, say so. I'm sick of the whole thing, anyway!"
"You know very well I never wanted to go," Billy answered. And because,
being now committed to the Villalonga visit, she perversely dreaded it,
she pursued aggrievedly, "I'd EVER so much rather have gone to
California, Dad!"
How sure the youngster was of her power, Rachael thought, watching him
instantly soften under his daughter's skilful touch.
"For five cents," he said eagerly, "I'd wire Vera, and you and I'd beat
it to Santa Barbara! What do you say?"
"And if Rachael promised to be awfully good, she could come, too!"
Billy laughed. But the girl's gay patronage was never again to be
extended to Rachael Breckenridge.
"You couldn't disappoint Vera now," she protested.
"Oh, Lord! make some objections!" Clarence growled.
"My dear boy, it's nothing to me, whatever you do," Rachael said
quickly. "But Vera Villalonga is a very important friend for Bill.
There's no sense in antagonizing her--"
"No, I suppose there isn't," Billy said slowly. "But I wish she'd not
ask us every summer. I suppose we shall be doing this for the rest of
our lives!"
She trailed slowly from the room, and Clarence took one or two fretful
glances at his paper.
"Gosh, how you do love to spoil things!" he said bitterly to his wife
in a sudden burst.
Rachael did not answer. She rose after a few moments, and carried her
letters into the adjoining room. When Clarence presently passed the
door she called him in.
"Now or never--now or never!" said Rachael's fast-beating heart. She
was pale and breathing quickly as he came in. But Clarence, sick and
headachy, did not notice these signs of strong emotion.
"Clarence, I need some money," Rachael said simply.
"What for?" he asked unencouragingly.
The color came into his wife's face. She did not ask often for money,
although he was rich, and she had been his wife for seven years. It was
a continual humiliation to Rachael that she must ask him at all for the
little actual money she spent, and tell him what she did with it when
she got it. Clarence might lose more money at poker in a single night
than Rachael touched in a month; it had come to him without effort, and
of the two, she was the one who made a real effort to hold the home
together. Yet she was a pensioner on his bounty, obliged to wait for
the propitious mood and moment. Under her hand at this moment was Mary
Moulton's check for one thousand dollars, more than she had ever had at
one time in her life. She could not touch it, but Clarence would turn
it into bills, and stuff them carelessly into his pocket, to be
scattered in the next week or two wherever his idle fancy saw fit.
"Why, for living, and travelling expenses," she answered, with what
dignity she could muster.
"Thought you had some money," he grumbled in evident distaste.
"Come in here a moment," Rachael said in a voice that rather to his
surprise he obeyed. "Sit down there," she went on, and Clarence,
staring at her a little stupidly, duly seated himself. His wife twisted
about in her desk chair so that she could rest an arm upon the back of
it, and faced him seriously across that arm.
"Clarence," said she, conscious of a certain dryness in her mouth, and
a sick quivering and weakness through-out her whole body, "I want to
end this."
"What?" asked Clarence, puzzled and dull, as she paused.
"I want to be free," Rachael said, stumbling awkwardly over the phrase
that sounded so artificial and dramatic. They looked at each other,
Clarence's bewildered look slowly changing to one of comprehension
under his wife's significant expression. There was a silence.
"Well?" Clarence said, ending it with an indifferent shrug.
"Our marriage has been a farce for years--almost from the beginning,"
Rachael asserted eagerly. "You know it, and I know it--everyone does.
You're not happy, and I'm wretched. I'm sick of excuses, and
pretending, and prevaricating. There isn't a thing in the world we feel
alike about; our life has become an absolute sham. It isn't as if I
could have any real influence over you--you go your way, and do as you
please, and I take the consequences. I realize now that every word I
say jars on you. Why, sometimes when you come into a room and find me
there I can tell by the expression on your face that you're angry just
at that! I've too much self-respect, I've too much pride, to go on this
way. You know how I hate divorce--no woman in the world hates it
more--but tell me, honestly, what do we gain by keeping up a life like
this? I used to be happy and confident and full of energy a few years
ago; now I'm bored all the time. What's the use, what's the use--that's
the way I feel about everything--"
"You're not any more tired of it than I am!" Clarence interrupted
sullenly.
"Then why keep it up?" she asked urgently. "You've Billy, and your
clubs, and your car, to fill your time. There'll be a fuss, of course,
and I hate that, but we'll both be away. We've given it a fair trial,
but we simply aren't meant for each other. Good heavens! it isn't as if
we were the first man and woman who--"
"Don't talk as if I were opposing you," Clarence said with a weary
frown.
Rachael, snubbed, instantly fell silent.
"I've got my side in all this dissatisfied business, too," the man
presently said with unsteady dignity. "You never cared a damn for me,
or what became of me! I've had you ding-donging your troubles at me day
and night; it never occurs to you what I'm up against." He looked at
his watch. "You want some money?" he asked.
"If you please," Rachael answered, scarlet-cheeked.
"Well, I can write a check--" he began.
"Here's this check of Mary Moulton's for July," Rachael said, nervously
adding: "She wants to pay month by month, because I think she hopes
you'll rent after August. I believe she'd keep the place indefinitely,
on account of being near her mother, and for the boys."
Clarence took the check, and, hardly glancing at it, scrawled his
slovenly "C. L. Breckenridge" across the back with a gold-mounted
fountain pen. Rachael, whose face was burning, received it back from
his hand with a husky "Thank you. You'll have to furnish the grounds, I
presume--there will be a referee--nothing need get out beyond the fact
that I am the complainant. You--won't contest? You--won't oppose
anything?" She hated herself for the question, but it had to be asked.
"Nope," the man said impatiently.
"And"--Rachael hesitated--"and you won't say anything, Clarence," she
suggested, "because the papers will get hold of it fast enough!"
"You can't tell me anything about that," he said sullenly. Then there
came a silence. Rachael, looking at him, wished that she could hate him
a little more, wished that his neglects and faults had made a little
deeper impression. For a minute or two neither spoke. Then Clarence got
up and left the room, and Rachael sat still, the little slip held
lightly between her fingers. The color ebbed slowly from her face, her
heart resumed its normal beat, moments went by, the little clock on her
desk ticked on and on. It was all over; she was free. She felt
strangely shaken and cold, and desolately lonely.
He loved her as little as she loved him. They had never needed each
other, yet there was in this severance of the bond between them a
strange and unexpected pain. It was as if Rachael's heart yearned over
the wasted years, the love and happiness that might have been. Not even
the thought of Warren Gregory seemed warm or real to-day; a great void
surrounded her spirit; she felt a chilled weariness with the world,
with all men--she was sick of life.
On the following day she gave Florence a hint of the situation. It was
only fair to warn the important, bustling matron a trifle in advance of
the rest of the world. Rachael had had a long night's sleep; she
already began to feel deliciously young and free. She was to spend a
few nights at the Havilands', and the next week supposedly go to the
Princes' at Bar Harbor; really she planned to disappear for a time from
her world. She must go up to town for a consultation with her lawyer,
and then, when the storm broke, she would slip away to little Quaker
Bridge, the tiny village far down on Long Island upon which, quite by
chance, she had stumbled two years before. No one would recognize her
there, no one of her old world could find her, and there for a month or
two she could walk and bathe and dream in wonderful solitude.
Then--then Greg would be home again.
"I want to tell you something, Florence," Rachael said to her
sister-in-law when she was stretched upon the wide couch in Florence's
room, watching with the placidity of a good baby that lady's process of
dressing for an afternoon of bridge, or rather the operations with cold
cream, rubber face brush, hair tonic, eyebrow stick, powder, rouge, and
lip paste that preceded the process of dressing. Mrs. Haviland, even
with this assistance, would never be beautiful; in justice it must be
admitted that she never thought herself beautiful. But she thought
rouge and powder and paste improved her appearance, and if through
fatigue or haste she was ever led to omit any or all of these
embellishments, she presented herself to the eyes of her family and
friends with a genuine sensation of guilt. Perhaps three hours out of
all her days were spent in some such occupation; between bathing,
manicuring, hair-dressing, and intervals with her dressmaker and her
corset woman it is improbable that the subject of her appearance was
long out of the lady's mind. Yet she was not vain, nor was she
particularly well satisfied with herself when it was done. That about
one-fifth of her waking time--something more than two months out of the
year--was spent in an unprofitable effort to make herself, not
beautiful nor attractive, but something only a little nearer than was
natural to a vague standard of beauty and attractiveness, never
occurred, and never would occur, to Florence Haviland.
"What is it?" she asked now sharply, pausing with one eyebrow
beautifully pencilled and the other less definite than ever by contrast.
"I don't suppose it will surprise you to hear that Clarence and I have
decided to try a change," Rachael said slowly.
"How do you mean a change?" the other woman said, instantly alert and
suspicious.
"The usual thing," Rachael smiled.
"What madness has got hold of that boy now?" his sister exclaimed
aghast.
"It's not entirely Clarence," Rachael explained with a touch of pride.
"Well, then, YOU'RE mad!" the older woman said shortly.
"Not necessarily, my dear," Rachael answered, resolutely serene.
"Go talk to someone who's been through it," Florence warned her. "You
don't know what it is! It's bad enough for him, but it's simple suicide
for you!"
"Well, I wanted you to hear it from me," Rachael submitted mildly.
"Do you mean to say you've decided, seriously, to do it?"
"Very seriously, I assure you!"
"How do you propose to do it?" Florence asked after a pause, during
which she stared with growing discomfort at her sister-in-law.
"The way other people do it," Rachael said with assumed lightness.
"Clarence agrees. There will be evidence."
Mrs. Haviland flushed.
"You think that's fair to Clarence?" she asked presently.
"I think that in any question of fairness between Clarence and me the
balance is decidedly in my favor!" Rachael said crisply. "Personally, I
shall have nothing to do with it, and Clarence very little. Charlie
Sturgis will represent me. I suppose Coates and Crandall will take care
of Clarence--I don't know. That's all there is to it!"
Her placid gaze roved about the ceiling. Mrs. Haviland gazed at her in
silence.
"Rachael," she said desperately, "will you TALK to someone--will you
talk to Gardner?"
"Why should I?" Rachael sat up on the couch, the loosened mass of her
beautiful hair falling about her shoulders. "What has Gardner or anyone
else to do with it? It's Clarence's business, and my business, and it
concerns nobody else!" she said warmly. "You look on from the outside.
I've borne it for seven years! I'm young, I'm only twenty-eight, and
what is my life? Keeping house for a man who insults me, and ignores
me, who puts me second to his daughter, and has put me second since our
wedding day--making excuses for him to his friends, giving up what I
want to do, never knowing from day to day what his mood will be, never
having one cent of money to call my own! I tell you there are days and
days when I'm too sick at heart to read, too sick at heart to think!
Last summer, for instance, when we were down at Easthampton with the
Parmalees, when everyone was so wild over bathing, and tennis, and
dancing, Clarence wasn't sober ONE MOMENT of the time, not one! One
night, when we were dancing--but I won't go into it!"
"I know," Florence said hastily, rather frightened at this magnificent
fury. "I know, dear, it's too bad--it's dreadful--it's a great shame.
But men are like that! Now Gardner--"
"All men aren't like that! Gardner does that sort of thing now and
then, I know," Rachael rushed on, "but Gardner is always sorry. Gardner
takes his place as a man of dignity in the world. I am nothing to
Clarence; I have never been to him one-tenth of what Billy is! I have
borne it, and borne it, and now I just can't--bear it--any longer!"
And Rachael, to her own surprise and disgust, burst into bitter crying,
and, stammering some incoherency about an aching head, she went to her
own room and flung herself across the bed. The suppressed excitement of
the last few days found relief in a long fit of sobbing; Florence did
not dare go near her. The older woman tried to persuade herself that
the resentment and bitterness of this unusual mood would be washed
away, and that Rachael, after a nap and a bath, would feel more like
herself, but nevertheless she went off to her game in a rather worried
frame of mind, and gave but an imperfect attention to the question of
hearts or lilies.
Rachael, heartily ashamed of what she would have termed her
schoolgirlish display of emotion, came slowly to herself, dozed over a
magazine, plunged into a cold bath, and at four o'clock dressed herself
exquisitely for Mrs. Whittaker's informal dinner. Glowing like a rose
in her artfully simple gown of pink and white checks, she went
downstairs.
Florence had come in late, bearing a beautiful bit of pottery, the
first prize, and was again in the throes of dressing, but Gardner was
downstairs restlessly wandering about the dimly lighted rooms and
halls. He was fond of Rachael, and as they walked up and down the lawn
together he tried, in a blunt and clumsy way, to show her his sympathy.
"Floss tells me you're about at the end of your rope--what?" said
Gardner. "Clarence is the limit, of course, but don't be too much in a
hurry, old girl. We'd be--we'd be awfully sorry to have you come to a
smash, don't you know--now!"
Thus Gardner. Rachael gave him a glimmering smile in the early dusk.
"Not much fun for me, Gardner," she said gravely.
"Sure it's not," Gardner answered, clearing his throat tremendously.
Neither spoke again until Florence came down, but later, in all
honesty, he told his wife that he had pitched into Rachael no end, and
she had agreed to go slow.
Florence, however, was not satisfied with so brief a campaign. She and
Rachael did not speak of the topic again until the last afternoon of
Rachael's stay. Then the visitor, coming innocently downstairs at tea
time, was a little confused to see that besides Mrs. Bowditch and her
oldest daughter, and old Mrs. Torrence, the Bishop and Mrs. Thomas were
calling. Instantly she suspected a trap.
"Rachael, dear," Florence said sweetly, when the greetings were over,
"will you take the bishop down to look at the sundial? I've been
boasting about it."
"You sound like a play, Florence," her sister-in-law said with a little
nervous laugh. "'Exit Rachael and Bishop, L.' Surely you've seen the
sundial, Bishop?"
"I had such a brief glimpse of it on the day of the tea," Bishop Thomas
said pleasantly, "that I feel as if I must have another look at that
inscription!" Smiling and benign, rather impressive in his clerical
black, the clergyman got to his feet, and turned an inviting smile to
Rachael.
"Shall I take you down, Bishop?" Charlotte asked, her eagerness to be
socially useful fading into sick apprehension at her mother's look.
"No, I'll go!" Rachael ended the little scene by catching up her wide
hat. "Come on, Bishop," she said courageously, adding, as soon as they
were out of hearing, "and if you're going to be dreadful, begin this
moment!"
"And why, pray, should I be dreadful?" the bishop asked, smiling
reproachfully. "Am I usually so dreadful? I don't believe it would be
possible, among these lovely roses"--he drew in a great breath of the
sweet afternoon air--"and with such a wonderful sunset telling us to
lift up our hearts." And sauntering contentedly along, the bishop gave
her an encouraging smile, but as Rachael continued to walk beside him
without raising her eyes, presently he added, whimsically: "Would it be
dreadful, Mrs. Breckenridge, if one saw a heedless little child--oh, a
sweet and dear, but a heedless little child--going too near the
cliffs--would it be dreadful to say: 'Look out, little child! There's a
terrible fall there, and the water's cold and dark. Be careful!'" The
bishop sat down on the carved stone bench that had been set in the
circle of shrubs that surrounded the sundial, and Rachael sat down, too.
"Well, what about the child?" he persisted, when there had been a
silence.
Rachael raised sombre eyes, her breast rose on a long sigh.
"I am not a child," she said slowly.
"Aren't we all children?" asked the bishop, mildly triumphant.
Rachael, sitting there in Florence's garden, looking down at the white
roofs of the village and the smooth sheet of blue that was Belvedere
Bay, felt a burning resentment enter her heart. How calm and smug and
sure of themselves they were, these bishops and Florences and old lady
Gregorys! How easy for them to advise and admonish, to bottle her up
with their little laws and platitudes, these good people married to
other good people, and wrapped in the warmth of mutual approval and
admiration! The bishop was talking--
"Children, yes, the best and wisest of us is no more than that," he was
saying dreamily, "and we must bear and forbear with each other. Not
easy? Of course it's not easy! But no cross no crown, you know. I have
known Clarence a great many years--"
"I am sorry to hurt Florence--God knows I'm sorry for the whole thing!"
Rachael said, "but you must admit that I am the best judge of this
matter. I've borne it long enough. My mind is made up. You and I have
always been good friends, Bishop Thomas"--she laid a beautiful hand
impulsively on his arm--"and you know that what you say has weight with
me. But believe me, I'm not jumping hastily into this: it's come after
long, serious thought. Clarence wants to be free as well--"
"Clarence does?" the clergyman asked, with a disapproving shake of his
head.
"He has said so," Rachael answered briefly.
"And what will your life be after this, my child?"
To this she responded merely with a shrug. Perhaps the bishop suspected
that such a calm confidence in the future indicated more or less
definite plans, for he gave her a shrewd and searching look, but there
was nothing to be said. The lovely lady continued to stare at the soft
turf with unsmiling eyes, and the clergyman could only watch her in
puzzled silence.
"After all," Rachael said presently, giving him a rueful glance, "what
are the statistics? One marriage in twelve fails--fails openly, I
mean--for of course there are hundreds that don't get that far. Sixty
thousand last year!"
"If those ARE the statistics," said the bishop warmly, "it is a
disgrace to a Christian country!"
"But you don't call this a Christian country?" Rachael said perversely.
"It is SUPPOSEDLY so," the clergyman asserted.
"Supposedly Christian," she mused, "and yet one marriage out of every
twelve ends in divorce, and you Christians--well, you don't CUT us! We
may not keep holy the Sabbath day, we may not honor our fathers and
mothers, we may envy our neighbor's goods, yes, and his wife, if we
like, but still--you don't refuse to come to our houses!"
"I don't know you in this mood," said Bishop Thomas coldly.
"Call it Neroism, or Commonsensism, or Modernism, or anything you
like," Rachael said with sudden fire, "but while you go on calling what
you profess Christianity, Bishop, you simply subscribe to an untruth.
You know what our lives are, myself and Florence and Gardner and
Clarence; is there a Commandment we don't break all day long and every
day? Do we give our coats away, do we possess neither silver nor gold
in our purses, do we love our neighbors? Why don't you denounce us? Why
don't you shun the women in your parish who won't have children as
murderers? Why don't you brand some of the men who come to your
church--men whose business methods you know, and I know, and all the
world knows--as thieves!"
"And what would my branding them as murderers and thieves avail?" asked
the bishop, actually a little pale now, and rising to face her as she
rose. "Are we to judge our fellowmen?"
"I'm not," Rachael said, suddenly weary, "but I should think you might.
It would be at least refreshing to have you, or someone, demonstrate
what Christianity is. It would be good for our souls. Instead," she
added bitterly, "instead, you select one little thing here, and one
little thing there, and putter, and tinker, and temporize, and gloss
over, and build big churches, with mortgages and taxes and insurance to
pay, in the name of Christianity! If I were little Annie Smith, down in
the village here, I could get a divorce for twenty-five dollars, and
you would never hear of it. But Clarence Breckenridge is a millionaire,
and the Breckenridges have gone to your church for a hundred years, and
so it's a scandal that must be averted if possible!"
"The church frowns on divorce," said the bishop sternly. "At the very
present moment the House of Bishops, to which I have the distinguished
honor to belong, is considering taking a decided stand in the matter.
Divorce is a sin--a sin against one of God's institutions. But when I
find a lady in this mood," he continued, with a sort of magnificent
forbearance, "I never attempt to combat her views, no matter how
extraordinarily jumbled and--and childish they are. As a clergyman, and
as an old friend, I am grieved when I see a hasty and an undisciplined
nature about to do that which will wreck its own happiness, but I can
only give a friendly warning, and pass on. I do not propose to defend
the institution to which I have dedicated my life before you or before
anyone. Shall we go back to the house?"
"Perhaps we had better," Rachael agreed. And as they went slowly along
the wide brick walk she added in a softened tone: "I do appreciate your
affectionate interest in--in us, Bishop. But--but it does exasperate
me, when so many strange things are done in the name of Christianity,
to have--well, Florence for instance--calmly decreeing that just these
other certain things shall NOT be done!"
"Then, because we can't all be perfect, it would be better not to try
to be good at all?" the bishop asked, restored to equanimity by what he
chose to consider an unqualified apology, and resuming his favorite
attitude of benignant adviser.
Rachael sighed wearily in the depth of her soul. She knew that kindly
admonitory tone, that complacent misconception of her meaning. She said
to herself that in a moment he would begin to ask himself questions,
and answer them himself.
"We are not perfect ourselves," said the clergyman benevolently, "yet
we expect perfection in others. Before we will even change our own
lives we like to look around and see what other people are doing.
Perfectly natural? Of course it's perfectly natural, but at the same
time it's one of the things we must fight. I shall have to tell you a
little story of our Rose, as I sometimes tell some of my boys at the
College of Divinity," continued the good man. Rose, an exemplary
unmarried woman of thirty, was the bishop's daughter. "Rose," resumed
her father, "wanted to study the violin when she was about twelve, and
her peculiar old pater decided that first she must learn to cook. Her
mother quite agreed with me, and the young lady was accordingly taken
out to the kitchen and introduced to some pots and pans. I also got her
some book, I've forgotten its name--her mother would remember;
'Complete Manual of Cookery'--something of that sort. A day or two
later I asked her mother how the cooking went. 'Oh,' she said, 'Rose
has been reading that book, and she knows more than all the rest of
us!'"
Rachael laughed generously. They had reached the house again now, and
Florence, glancing eagerly toward them, was charmed to see both
smiling. She felt that the bishop must have influenced Rachael, and
indeed the clergyman himself was sure that her mood was softer, and
found opportunity before he departed to say to his hostess in a low
tone that he fancied that they would hear no more of the whole
miserable business.
"Oh, Bishop, how wonderful of you!" said Florence thankfully.