EDWARD was so unhappy that he couldn't keep it to himself. Anne believed that he was unhappy because Alice had left Paris; her jealousy got the better of her good resolutions and she started to work herself into a fury.
Edward simply caught up his hat and started coldly from the room. He was in the mood to leave Anne forever and ever. But she followed him down all the stairs, abusing him in a voice that grew stronger and stronger as her passion rose.
He dared not go out into the street. She would have followed and made a laughing-stock of him. He turned and caught her by the wrist—firmly but not roughly. At once she began to scream that he was hurting her. "Kill me if you must," she screamed, "but don't torture me!"
He was helpless. He tried to dart past her and run back to the studio, but she grappled with him.
"Let go of me," he said savagely, "or I will hurt you."
There must have been a dangerous look in his eye, for she did let go and she lowered her voice.
"Why are you so cruel to me?" she said.
"I cruel to you! Oh, you fool! Why do you have to spoil everything?"
He went up the stairs slowly and wearily. She followed. When he reached the studio, he walked to a window and stood looking out. He was so miserable that he would almost have liked to throw himself out of the window and get his neck broken.
He even considered the notion.
Anne came and leaned against him. "I am sorry," she said. "I'll never do it again."
"I've heard that before."
"But this time I am serious. I mean it."
"When I am depressed and unhappy, instead of trying to help me, you stage a terrible scene. It is intolerable. You ought to be whipped."
"I know I ought. And if you really whipped me and hurt me it might make me behave. Women who are beaten occasionally are nearly always well behaved. I wish you would whip me."
"You know that I won't . . . I am going to tell you why I have been so depressed. Miss Ruggles is going to marry my brother, and she will be very unhappy."
"That is nothing to me."
"No. You have no heart where anyone but yourself is concerned. But I've known her ever a since we were children. We have been like brother and sister, and I want her to be happy."
"You'd better marry her yourself."
"Are you going to start another scene? I advise you not to. My temper is pretty well lost, and that is the best advice I ever gave anyone."
For several hours both belligerents were sulky and miserable. Then came dinner and the amusing sights and sounds of a Latin Quarter restaurant to relieve the tension. Edward was always he ready to forget and forgive at the slightest excuse, and Anne for all her jealousies and bad temper was really in love with him, and they went to their home finally as affectionate and happy as a couple of turtle-doves.
When Edward had taken Anne into his life and heart he had not given much thought to the future or to his relationship with other people. He had already perceived the drawbacks of being tied to Anne, and of course the tempers were really horrible, but he perceived also that there were very real advantages. He was never lonely or bored, and life had a genuine domestic touch.
She was a thrifty young woman with a passion for mending. And she could make even a few broad copper pennies do a lot of work.
He wished sometimes that he had no other ties or obligations in the world. He was going to be a very successful painter—and soon. Everybody said so. And it seemed a pity that he should have to have anything on his mind but the painting. In his day-dreams he pictured to himself a summer place with a fine big studio, outside of Paris, and a winter place—well, perhaps in Spain. He could earn enough money to make them very comfortable, and Anne would administer the money and cause the servants to work and the house and garden to be full of flowers. In time she would become so sure of Edward's single-hearted love and devotion that she would stop all her tempers and jealousies. He would paint her charming rosy body hundreds of times. All they would have to do would be to live happily and work happily and the world would be at their feet.
Meanwhile Edward's illustrations had impressed themselves upon certain editors in the United States, and he had so many orders that the execution of them interfered with his painting. He did not wish to be an illustrator; but it was wonderfully pleasant to earn so much money so easily and to have a growing bank account. And it was good training—doing things that you didn't especially want to do just as well as you could possibly do them.
One day he read in a stray copy of the Paris Herald that the ship Albacore was two weeks overdue and that nothing had been heard of her. The Albacore was John's new ship, and Edward was so startled that his heart almost stopped beating . . . But then of course nothing could happen to John. John was an institution. He was the first institution in the family. But at the end' of a few hours Edward was so worried that he got Anne's permission—he always had to have that—to cross the river and visit the office of the Herald.
The Albacore was still missing.
Edward returned to Anne and told her all of his anxieties. He told her about John being married and having a child—but without any reference to James—and he said that he didn't know what was going to become of them if anything happened to John.
"And Anne, darling," he said, "if anything has happened to John, you'll just have to let me go back to New York to help straighten things out. And I ought to see my father, who is sick. I've got to go. You see that, don't you?"
But Anne, when she wished, could see more than the truth in any statement.
"You wish to go to New York," she said, "so that you can save that Alice from your brother James—so that you can save her for yourself."
"You know that I love you, and not anybody else! Why do you always want to make trouble? It's months since I saw her. Have I behaved like a man who is unhappy because some young woman has gone away? Haven't I made love to you all the time?" He had—almost. He had behaved like a young man who was still on his honeymoon. "But if anything has happened to John, I've got to go. And nothing that you can say or do will stop me."
And something had happened to John. Nobody was ever to know just what. The Albacore had vanished into the seas together with her officers and her crew.
Edward's distress became so poignant that Anne no longer had the heart to quarrel with him or find fault with him. And she even urged him to do the thing that he wished to do. There was money enough for his journey and to keep Anne during his absence, and there was more money owing which he would be able to collect in New York. And, more valuable still, he would be able to make personal connections with his editors and to arrange for the future.
The day before his departure, Anne and Edward went to the cathedral of Notre Dame and burned a candle for his safe voyage. She made him swear that he would come back to her. He did not need to swear that. His heart would bring him. She had her faults—terrible faults—but she loved him. Faults or no faults, he could not see life without her. No other woman had any attraction for him.
And she made him swear that he would not see Alice. He swore that oath too, for the sake of peace, but he had no intention of keeping it.
From the docks he went straight to Bartow-on-the-Sound. The rectory was a house of mourning. You might have thought that no mother and son had ever been closer or more deeply in each other's confidence, sympathy and trust than Dear Mother and John. The Reverend Mr. Eaton was more gentle and silent than ever. But his extraordinary black eyes had a haunted look. He took Edward in his arms and kissed him on both cheeks—just as if Edward had been a daughter. The young man was deeply affected and kept back his tears with difficulty.
And that night, after Dear Mother had gone to bed, he sat up late with his father and told him about Anne. It wasn't an easy telling at first, but as the Reverend Mr. Eaton made no comments, it became easier.
When Edward had finished, Mr. Eaton, who had been leaning attentively forward, leaned back and clasped his fine white hands over his right knee, swinging his right foot to and fro, and said: "I understand very well how these things start, but I want to know what your heart and mind tell you now that the first glamour is over."
Edward considered for some moments. Then he said: "Truthfully, father, I think I feel just the way any man feels about his wife—that I must be kind to her, and faithful, and take good care of her. I feel that I have lots and lots of other duties and considerations, but that she just naturally comes first. Was there always marriage?"
"Probably not," said Mr. Eaton, "but we don't know. . . . I had rather a thousand times that you came back from abroad with this story of the one young woman than with a worldly wise expression upon your face—and no story at all. I am disturbed by what you have told me, a little aghast and horrified perhaps; from a moral point of view I disapprove strongly of what you have done. But I am very proud that you had enough confidence in me to tell me about it."
"Even if Ruth hadn't gossiped," said Edward, "I had made up my mind to tell you. But I'd rather mother didn't know."
"Can the secret be kept?"
"I don't know," said Edward, "but getting a divorce for Anne is only a question of money. If I can earn enough, soon enough, then we can be married, and mother need never know any more than just that much."
"It would be nice," said Mr. Eaton, "if your poor mother didn't even have to know about the divorce. She puts all the moralities into pigeonholes, you know . . . Have you heard about Mark?"
"What about him? No, sir, I haven't."
"I thought some member of the family would have written. I hadn't the heart."
"I heard that his wife made him a lot of trouble."
"He shot a man because of her."
"No!" exclaimed Edward, his face lighting with anxiety and interest.
"Mark appears to stand very well in his community and the case did not get into the courts. It appears also that Mark is cool-headed and that he did not shoot to kill . . . The interloper was so wounded that for some weeks—well, he had to eat off the mantlepiece, and the neighbors have poked so much fun at him that he has been obliged to leave town. Mark's wife is, I am afraid, one of those wives who really ought to be divorced. But because of the baby Mark will not divorce her. He has sold his interests, at a great sacrifice, I am afraid, and has moved farther West—somewhere where the story will not be known. She must have another chance, he says; but she is very tired of Mark, and she will never tire of flattery."
"And Mark was doing so well, and now he has to start all over again. What does mother think about all this?"
Mr. Eaton simply lifted his hands in a gesture which clearly indicated the hopelessness of trying to explain Dear Mother's thoughts on the subject. But he did say: "She has given Mark up for lost. He knows that his wife is a wicked woman and by his failure to punish her has made himself equally culpable. That, I believe, is a small part of your mother's mental attitude."
"It's altogether different in Europe," said Edward, "but American men, whether they are husbands or juries, don't ever seem to like to punish women."
"That is true," said Mr. Eaton, "we don't. We have destroyed the buffalo and the forest and the Indian. We are beginning to destroy the whole edifice of liberty which our ancestors worked so hard to build up for us. But to our women we have been fatuously kind and indulgent. Historians will come, perhaps, to the conclusion that that has been our greatest and our most destructive mistake."
"But we are not going to change?" said Edward.
"Certainly not," said his father, "though the heavens fall . . . And now, my dear boy, it is getting late, and I am supposed to keep early hours."
"You haven't told me anything about yourself."
"There is so little to tell . . . John, our strong man is gone, and I shall probably live to be as old as Methuselah!"
Edward looked into his father's eyes, and seemed to see death in them—death not very far off. He tried to smile cheerfully, but succeeded only in twitching the corners of his mouth.
There was a difficulty about going to town early the next morning. Dear Mother seemed to think that business, owing to darling John's recent death, ought to be postponed; but since the business related to John's wife and the child, and since they might be in real need, Edward did not feel that it ought to be delayed on any account. A delay might result in the sudden appearance of the young woman and the offspring at the rectory, and Edward dreaded anything of that kind, not only for his mother's sake but for the young woman's.
So he said that the business really involved his financial future—it did, more than he realized at the time—and he was sorry, and he would do anything in the world that was reasonable to please Dear Mother, but this particular trip could not possibly be foregone.
It seemed horribly "heartless" to Dear Mother, and "people will be sure to talk." But Edward held to his resolution and caught the eight twenty-two.
He found the old blind woman, and James's child, in the charge of a cross-voiced slattern, but the blind woman's daughter, John's wife, and the child's mother, had very recently departed with a traveling salesman for parts unknown.
"Your brother," said the old blind woman, when Edward's identity had been made clear to her, "didn't do right by her. And I don't blame her for what she done. But if she'd 'a' knowed John was going to be drowned, she might have waited."
"Have you any plans?" asked Edward. "Any money?"
"We've been living on the last money your brother sent—and now"—here she began to sniffle—"there ain't going to be any more."
"Yes, there will," said Edward. There will be enough money to keep you and someone to look after you, but"—and one last look at the ugly, squalid surroundings and the faces of the two women determined his duty—"I don't want John's—my brother's little boy Well, I think he will be better off with me. I will take him back to France with me. He will be better off there."
The child's grandmother—and it was astonishing what a resemblance the child bore to James—sniffed a little at this and pretended to an affection which it was obvious that she did not feel, but in the end she conceded that the boy would be better off with his uncle.
"Then that is settled," said Edward. "But you may keep him, if you will, until I sail."
Edward reached home in time for dinner. He was childishly pleased with himself. He felt that he had met a difficult situation and mastered it.
And he felt very proud to think that at his age he could make himself financially responsible for the keep of an old blind woman and the proper rearing and education of his nephew. He felt that he had done just what dear old John would have wished him to do.
A week later came the first letter that he had ever received from Anne. She missed him so that her heart was breaking. She would never be bad again. And he must love her more than he had ever loved her before, because—well, she could have told him before he sailed, but she hadn't been perfectly sure, and she hadn't wanted to worry him. But she was sure now. There was no doubt. She had been to an old woman who knew all about such things . . .
In plain English, Anne was going to have a baby.
Dearest James had told Dear Mother that he would come to the country at once to see Edward. But he did not come at once and Dear Mother was distressed. What would people think? A brother not coming to see a brother who had been away in France for a long time!
For once Edward wished to see James—but not for pleasure. He wished to talk with James about James's little son, and he wished if possible to make him break off his engagement with Alice Ruggles.
But James himself had done that, and very recently.
He came to the country at last looking very handsome and attractive. He did not come alone. There was a young woman with him.
She was extraordinarily beautiful and gentle. She wore the richest and quietest clothes, and a marquise diamond big enough to have supported the entire Eaton family for the rest of their lives.
"Ellen," said James in his most beguiling voice, "this is my Dear Mother. Mother Dear—my wife."
Dear Mother shambled forward as if her legs had been suddenly stiffened. Her upper lip drew back from her projecting shelf of upper teeth. She was smiling. Some intuition had told her that her favorite son had done very well by himself.
He had. Miss Hepwing, to whom he had been quietly married three days before, was a well-born New York girl, all of whose relatives were rich and most of whom were dead. The dead included her parents. There had been nobody to save her from James, and he had managed to make her love him almost at once.
Edward stood in a corner unobserved while Dear Mother "made over" the newly married pair.
"A mother," she cried, "can never have enough daughters . . . How beautiful you are, my dear! How proud I am to have such a beautiful daughter . . ."
"How about Alice?" thought Edward.
At this moment the handsome roving eye of James detected him.
"Eddie!" shouted James. "Dear old Eddie. Ellen, this is Edward—the old rascal—the young prodigal. Come forward, Edward, and kiss your new sister!"
Edward came forward. The sweetness of her face and the honesty and candor of her eyes thrilled him.
"What a perfectly lovely new sister you are," he said, and he kissed her. From that moment to this day he has felt that his sister-in-law is much the loveliest person in the world and has the most beautiful character. He racks his brain sometimes and twists all his theories of God inside out trying to explain to himself why she should have been given to a man like James.
When presently the Reverend Mr. Eaton came in, he too fell in love with Mrs. James, and his brains too were well racked and his theories about God were twisted and tousled in trying to explain to himself how she happened to have been allowed to cast herself away upon that desert island of a son of his—where all that was deserving in her of happiness must come to grief.
But perhaps that great goodness of hers, the which there was no mistaking, would prove contagious. Perhaps James would come down with it in time—if only with a mild case. He didn't.
Finally Dear Mother carried the new daughter off to the upper regions of the house, the Reverend Mr. Eaton retreated into his workroom, and the two brothers were left together.
"Charming—isn't she?" said James.
"I think she is wonderful," said Edward. "She has the sweetest expression I ever saw."
"She is like her expression through and through," said James. "I don't deserve her."
"Right you are!" exclaimed Edward cheerfully.
But James frowned. It was all right for him to depreciate himself, but it was no proper work for any other member of the family. There was a silence between them. Then Edward, drawing a quick breath, said:
"How about Alice Ruggles? What does she think about all this?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said James coldly. "She hasn't heard about it yet."
"She probably still thinks she is engaged to be married to you."
"I never said I'd marry her," said James.
And Edward blushed. He blushed to think that he could have a brother who should make such a speech as that.
"So if you still want Alice," said James, "you can probably have her."
Edward fought down his rage. "What?" he asked, "are you going to do about your little boy?"
"What little boy?"
"You know."
"I do not know."
"He looks precisely like the pictures of you at the same age. And his mother said that you were his father. She ought to know."
"Young Edward," said James, "would it inconvenience you too much to concentrate your attention on your own affairs?"
"John shielded us from the scandal and relieved you of your responsibility. But there was something noble about John. There is nothing noble about me."
"Right you are!" put in James smartly.
But Edward went right on. "It's your child and it's your affair. Father will tell you so when he hears about it, and so will mother, and so will Ellen."
"If you say anything to hurt Ellen!" exclaimed James, "I'll wring your young neck."
"To blazes with my young neck!" said Edward, his rage rising again. "And, anyway, you've led such a soft life that if you so much as touched me I'd knock the daylights out of you. But do right—and I won't tell."
"Flow do you mean—do right?"
"The child has to live."
"I don't want to hear anything about that particular child or any other."
"The child has to live," continued Edward steadily. "I will look after the details and Ellen need never know, but you'll have to put up two hundred dollars a month."
"The devil I will! And how do I know the brat's mine? That girl was"
"Oh, shut up!" exclaimed Edward. "Will you find that money or shall I ask Ellen for it?"
James could never be made to acknowledge that the child was his; but under the pretense that it was really John's and that he could not bear to see it starve, he agreed finally to pay over to Edward two hundred dollars on the first of each and every month. He made these payments regularly for a while, then irregularly, and finally he stopped making them altogether.
The fact that he had upon his hands a young woman of uncertain temper who was not his wife, a child that was not his, and a child of his own on the way did not daunt Edward's spirit. On the contrary he felt rather important and broad-shouldered and self-sufficient. He had agreed to do regular illustrating for a rich and widely circulated magazine, and had no doubt about his financial responsibility. He did wonder a little about when he should find time to paint and pursue art seriously; but he did not worry. The manly thing, he felt, was to support those who were dependent upon him and to think about himself afterward. So he wrote rapturous letters to Anne, and in the midst of the raptures explained about his brother's little boy, whom he would bring back to France with him. He would always let Anne and all the rest of the world believe that the boy was legitimately John's. It couldn't hurt poor old John any, and it would be of advantage to the boy. Edward was going to try very hard to like that boy. But he wished that he did not so strongly resemble brother James.
Dear Mother, who knew nothing of these complications and responsibilities, had made up her mind to keep Edward at home. So many people had spoken to her about his illustrations, his talent, or his genius—at the option of the individual enthusiasm—and his good looks (this particular praise was a matter of sex) that she began to approve of the course that Edward had steered with his young life. She admitted that she had wished him to enter the Church; but she had also encouraged him to draw, helped him in his choice of subjects and bought him a fine box of paints. Of course he had always been her boy—her baby.
Now daily she worked upon his feelings. She made him her confidant, told him that his darling, precious, sainted father had not long to live and that she herself had no one to lean on or confide in. James? Well, he had been away so much—not callous, you know—but very intent upon his own personal fortune—and what a success he was! She had always expected great things of James; but this brilliant marriage, to this exquisite young fatherless and motherless creature—for whom one's heart ached—with all her money and so forth and so forth. It was really overwhelming!
She was steadily kind, admiring and indulgent. She almost succeeded in winning his confidence. But not quite. He observed that her judgments about unsuccessful people, unless they were painfully religious and hypocritical, were just as bitter as ever.
At this time there returned to Westchester from Paris a rich Mrs. Ludlow. And she made it an immediate point to call upon her pastor and Mrs. Eaton to tell them all the wonderful things she had been hearing about their youngest son.
"All Paris is talking about him," she said. "I did my best to get hold of him so that I could bring you news direct; but he had gone out of town. I went to his studio, but he had rented it to a young woman and her mother—painters also, I gathered."
"Edward's here," said Mr. Eaton, "right here in this house."
Ever since her marriage to a large fortune, and especially since the decease of her husband, Mrs. Ludlow had hunted lions. Her eyelids fluttered. Her nostrils dilated. She was on the trail of still another.
"Oh, but I must see him! I must tell him myself what everybody is saying."
"I'll fetch him," said Mr. Eaton.
He took his time with the stairs—he always had to now—and found Edward in John's rooms. Edward's hands were all a mess with oil and emery powder. He had been cleaning the rust from the pair of Revolutionary sabers that John had always valued so highly.
"John always kept them bright till he went to sea," he said. "After that I took care of them. And I thought I'd better have one more whack at the old things."
"I don't like to interrupt," said Mr. Eaton, "but there are ladies below who demand your presence. Your mother and Mrs. Ludlow."
"The Mrs. Ludlow?"
"The very woman!"
"She used to be rather good looking."
"I should have said opulent looking—opulent in its physical rather than its financial sense."
"What do they want with me?"
Mr. Eaton wrinkled up his eyes and smiled. "The last lion that ventured into Mrs. Ludlow's drawing-room never came out. She is said to have devoured him alive."
"But" Then Edward broke into a broad grin. "Am I a lion? Me? Has she never seen a lion so very little that she had pity for it?"
"Never!" said Mr. Eaton.
Edward finished washing his hands and said that he would be down in a minute.
"Thank you," said his father. At the door he turned and said: "I think it might be effective if you began to roar when you reached the foot of the stairs and entered the parlor on all fours."
Edward put the sabers aside with the intention of giving them a final polishing later, had a look at himself in the mirror, not to admire himself but to see if there was any oil and emery on his face, and went slowly down to the parlor.
"You nice boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Ludlow. "You must come and sit down right beside me and hear all about yourself."
Edward did as he was told.
"I am just back from Paris," said Mrs. Ludlow. "I even did myself the honor of calling on you at your studio"
Edward could not help changing color. Good Lord, what was the woman going to say next!
"But of course you were gone. Your tenants were very nice and friendly. They let me come in and look at all the paintings. The girl was really very sweet and pretty—and the mother must have been pretty before her mustache became so pronounced. But have you heard?"
No, Edward hadn't.
"Not that two of your pictures have been hung on the line and that all Paris is talking?"
No, Edward had not heard that. But it was wonderful news. He was no longer bored and indifferent. Mrs. Lion Hunter was transformed in the twinkling of an eye into a most wise, entertaining, witty and agreeable person.
"The picture called Ogre's House"
"Brigand's House?" Edward suggested.
"How stupid of me!—the Brigand's House—is a sensation—but for my part I simply adored those three lovely young girls fading into the mists of the river."
Edward smiled gaily. "It was too hot to sleep," he explained, "so they all went for a swim."
"But where did you find such lovely models?"
At this point Mrs. Eaton, who had been drinking in the praise with immense satisfaction, broke into the conversation.
"Models!" she exclaimed. "Do you have to have models?"
"For the human form divine, mother?" said Edward. "Well, I should rather think so!"
"Do you mean to tell me," said Mrs. Eaton, and her horror was genuine, "that young women come to your studio and undress themselves?"
"Not unless I ask them to," said Edward demurely.
Mrs. Ludlow laughed nervously.
"I should think," said Mrs. Eaton, "that you could find plenty of other objects to paint."
"I could," said Edward patiently, "and do—often. But this picture was of three tired little shop-girls who, after working all day, couldn't sleep in their hot garret and went swimming in the river."
"All Paris," said Mrs. Ludlow, "is saying that it is one of the loveliest pictures ever painted."
"The tough part was the stars and the mist," said Edward. "I worked my head off over that."
"But what a subject!" exclaimed Mrs. Eaton.
"A subject comes into your head, mother dear," said Edward, "and you have to paint it. There is no way out."
"What is the other painting?"
"Just an old house in Corsica—with a green tile roof, and a fig tree, and a tremendous wine-colored shadow on one side."
"That," said Mrs. Eaton, "I should conceive to be a far more suitable subject for a painting."
"Maybe it is," said Edward, "but I love to paint figures. And it is not so easy as you might think."
"The Pirate's House," said Mrs. Ludlow, "is being considered by the Luxembourg."
"What!" exclaimed Edward.
Mrs. Ludlow nodded. And then, feeling sure that she had thrown a net around her lion, she rose and said her good-bys. She invited Edward, quite casually, to call upon her. He promised that he would do so. He escorted her to her carriage, and on the way they named a day—the next day but one, at five o'clock.
"I want to talk to you about a lot of things," she said. "A portrait of myself—if you would care for the commission—and your—well, your younger tenant."
Her eyes were fixed sharply upon his. And he knew at once that she knew about Anne. He lowered his voice.
"What about her?" he asked anxiously. "She's all right, isn't she?"
But Mrs. Ludlow only smiled, stepped nimbly into her carriage and said: "Home—Robbins."
Edward was beginning to wonder why he heard nothing of Alice Ruggles—she must know that he was in Westchester—and he wrote to her and received no answer. He determined, therefore—in spite of his promise to Anne—to call upon her at the earliest opportunity, but in the meanwhile the portrait of Mrs. Ludlow, for which she was to pay him five hundred dollars, occupied his mind to the exclusion of everything else.
He had called upon Mrs. Ludlow, and together they looked over all the dresses in her wardrobe. They had chosen the dress for her to be painted in, and they decided that she should be painted behind a tea table with a handsome service of Georgian silver-fluted column behind her and in the middle distance a willow tree and beyond the wooded shore of the bay.
During the first sittings Edward liked Mrs. Ludlow. But as time passed his liking changed almost to aversion. She proved to him that no woman is too old to hope that some young man will make love to her. She made herself ridiculous with her hints and her advances and her languishing looks, and she made Edward miserably uncomfortable. The night he stayed to dinner she tried to make him drink too much and didn't succeed. The day the portrait was finished she flung her arms around him and hugged him with astonishing strength and declared her passion for him. She begged him to marry her. She boasted of her money and her influence. She could make him the most famous painter in the world.
Poor Edward, who hated to hurt anybody's feelings! He tried so hard to be kind and affectionate. He patted her shoulders clumsily. He even kissed her. And he lied to her. He said that her love was a wonderful thing to him, wonderful and precious . . . Unfortunately—well—what she suggested was impossible. The girl in Paris—well, he and that girl were husband and wife.
He escaped finally. And spent the next week in dodging and evading the woman's attentions. He hated her. He wrote to Anne that he had painted a portrait of an old friend of his mother's and that as soon as he had received the money he would sail for France. He sailed without the money. No love, no money. The rich Mrs. Ludlow never did pay for her portrait.
One afternoon found Edward alone in the rectory. His father and his Dear Mother had gone to pay a round of parish calls. He thought that it would be a good opportunity to sneak off to New Rochelle and see Alice Ruggles. The walk would do him good. He went to his room to change his shoes, and when he had changed them and was coming down the stairs the parlormaid had just answered a ring at the front door. And the clear boyish voice which Edward heard asking if Mr. James were at home was the voice of Alice Ruggles herself.
"Mr. James is in the city."
"But I'm here, Alice," cried Edward, and he descended the remaining steps in two jumps.
The pallor of Alice's face and the woe in her eyes was like a blow to him. He simply stood and stared at her.
The parlor-maid left them.
"Is it true that James is married?"
"Yes, Alice, it is true. Come into the parlor and sit down. You look sick."
"Married!" she said, and stood her ground.
"Oh, you are terribly hurt. I know that!" exclaimed Edward. "But you have had a lucky escape. I tell you, you have had a lucky escape."
"You don't know what you are talking about," said Alice sharply, "and I don't know what is going to become of me."
Suspicion sickened into certainty. After a long silence Edward said: "The dirty dog! He ought to be lynched." Then he said, "Do your father and mother know?"
"Mother knows that there is something all wrong—but she doesn't dare suspect. She knows it would kill her—and father. Poor father and his theories! They don't work out when it comes to me."
"What are you going to do?"
"What can I do? I'm not going to go on living. That's certain."
"But Alice—don't talk like that!"
"Where is your mother? I'll ask her what I'd better do. Maybe she would like to take me in. Anything that has ever belonged to her blessed James ought to be sacred to her."
"Mother's out," said Edward, "and don't talk so wildly. Are you still in love with James?"
"I hate him! I could kill him."
"So could I—slow torture, and all that kind of thing. But what's the use? Let's be practical. Come in here." He slid an arm around her waist and half carried her into the parlor. Then he fetched her a glass of wine from his father's study. It was communion wine. Lacrimæ Christi—tears of Christ. The alcoholic content was low, but it brought some color into her cheeks. He made her take the easiest chair. He put some cushions back of her and one under her feet.
"Feel better?"
"I always feel better when I'm with you."
Her words warmed his heart.
"And safe?"
"Safe."
"That's good. Then listen, you poor little kid, and let's see if we can't find some way to make life worth living."
First he told her about John's marriage to the girl that James had ruined and how it had devolved upon him to take charge and custody of the child of that ruination. Then he told her about Anne and the baby that Anne was going to have; and about Anne's jealousy and his love for Anne.
"I'll always love Anne," he said, "and I'll always be faithful to her. But we can't be married because she is married, and it wouldn't complicate matters much if I were married too, and it would protect you—and I'd give my painting hand to protect you. We could be married and you could come to France to live. And although Anne would be terribly furious at first, why, in the end I could make her understand. She wouldn't let me see you—ever—I don't suppose. But you'd be my wife, and the baby would have a chance—and I'd help: you in every way that I possibly could. Now there's the only sane practical way that there is out of this mess."
Alice wept very bitterly. She wept, she said, because Edward was so noble. But when he had put her in her carriage, there was a twinkle of hope in her woeful eyes. And they had arranged to be married.
Of course it was the memory of what John had done that inspired Edward to do the same for another lady in distress. He had thought only about the noble aspect of John's conduct—never about the foolish one. But he did realize now that he had made his own life, which ought to have been simple, direct and carefree, about as complicated as possible. He acknowledged freely to himself that he was a hopeless idiot. And there were certain aspects of this affair which were much too awful to think about at all.
Could he keep his marriage to Alice a secret from Anne? His own people would have to know after the fact, and so would hers. What would Anne do if she found out? He shuddered at that thought. He remembered that he had never succeeded in explaining anything to Anne.
Would he be able to feed so many hungry mouths—two women and three children? He doubted if the Ruggles would be able to give their daughter more than enough to dress on.
But he was young and strong and affectionate and full of courage. The moralities of his situation did not affect him. For already he had seen enough of this best of all possible worlds to realize that as often as not it is the bad man who succeeds and the good man who perishes. Look at James! Look at John!
Dear Mother made countless difficulties about his going back to Paris. Just because she carried a stiff upper lip and continued to make unheard—of sacrifices for everybody, did he realize that she was old and had used up her strength? Did he realize that his precious father had not long to live? She succeeded in making Edward feel like a perfect brute, and for two days prior to his sailing she hardly spoke to him. And for once his father wasn't much help to him.
"Can't you see your way of staying at home with us, Edward?"
"How about Anne, father?"
"She isn't your wife."
"Doesn't that bind me all the tighter to her?"
"Your mother and I need you."
"Oh, father"
"You must do what you think is right."
"Father, I am doing what I think is right. It means hard work. It means giving up lots of things and it means all kinds of complications and difficulties. I would be glad if I could be a little boy again and begin all over. But I can't, and I have to go on. I didn't stay on the safe bank, I jumped into the river and I've got to swim."
Mr. Eaton said no more.
That night a carriage drove swiftly up to the rectory, and there was a quick patter of feet on the brick walk and an insistent ringing of the front door bell.
"How perfectly outrageous!" exclaimed Mrs. Eaton. "Edward! See who that person is."
The person was Mr. Ruggles. His face was white and stern.
"Alice is desperately sick," he said. "She wants to see you."
Edward thrust a white face into the parlor. He said simply: "I am going with Mr. Ruggles, mother. I don't know when I'll be back."
He shut the door quickly so as not to hear what his mother might have to say to that. He snatched up his hat from the hall table.
They drove in silence for a long way. Then Mr. Ruggles spoke.
"The doctor thinks that we are going to lose her," he said. "She had a fall . . . I know that you are not to blame, Eddie; but you will have to forgive me if at the moment I can't feel kindly towards any member of your family."
"I don't blame you."
"If I could lay my hands on your brother James, I would strangle him."
"So would I," said Edward.
"Poor little Alice trusted him," said Mr. Ruggles. "She trusted him."
"I know."
"She told you?"
"She told me. But she'll get well and then we can be married . . ."
"Married—you and Alice?"
"When she told me about James—and he married to somebody else—it seemed the only way to make things look right for her. She was to meet me in town tomorrow. I have the license in my pocket."
There was another long silence, during which Mr. Ruggles continually flicked his flagging horse with the whip. He said at last:
"I do feel kindly toward you, Eddie."
As they passed through the little gate in the wall, Edward's eyes took in the old motto, printed upon it in iron letters:
"They say. What say they? Let them say."
And for some reason or other a great lump rose in his throat. Until that moment he had not believed that any creature so filled with life as Alice could die. He had the premonition that she was not going to live.
And it seemed to him that he had never really loved Anne, but only Alice, and Alice always. It seemed to him that he could not bear to have her die.
How should he look when he entered the sickroom? What should he say? The poor boy was so eager to do just the right thing—that he did it. At the sight of her all thought of self left him, and he advanced quickly to the bed with his face filled with concern and affection. Mr. Ruggles was the first to speak.
"I've brought Eddie, Alice," he said, His voice was quite steady, and he added, "You'll probably want to have a little visit together—such old friends."
He took his wife by the arm and led her out of the room.
"Feeling a little better?" asked Edward.
"Maybe. I think so. But I'm going to die."
"No, you're not." He took one of her hands and held it in both his.
"I'm only sorry for mother and father," she said.
"Think that you'll get well and you will."
"Don't let's argue, Eddie. Hold my hand tight. When you went away I was hurt. And I guess I did everything I've done out of spite . . . I never really liked anybody but you, and when I thought you didn't care . . ."
"I did care. I do care. It was always you. I've made a mess of things too."
"You don't really love that girl in Paris, do you? Say you don't, anyway."
At that moment he didn't love Anne. He said: "I never loved anybody but you."
He leaned forward and cuddled his cheek against hers. With her free hand she caressed his hair.
"Now I can go to sleep," she said, "without any danger of bad dreams. Everything's all right now." A minute later she said: "I'd give anything if we could just stay like this till the finish, but father and mother would feel so horribly hurt and jealous. Will you please tell them to come, darling? . . . Kiss me good-bye first."
She held up her pretty mouth and he kissed it with all the tenderness that was in him. Then he rose and walked quietly out of the room.
Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles and the doctor were waiting in the hall. Edward managed to say:
"She wants her father and mother." And then his power of speech failed him. He went downstairs and paced from the old grandfather clock in the hall to the pot of ferns in the bay window of the drawing-room and back again—to and fro—until he knew by a sound of sobbing that she had died.
A very pale and sick-looking Edward joined his father and his Dear Mother at breakfast.
"When did you get home, Edward?" asked Dear Mother in the old peremptory voice.
"About ten minutes ago," said Edward, "and I'd rather not be scolded about it. Alice is dead."
"That lovely child?" exclaimed Mr. Eaton. "How terrible!"
Dear Mother was shocked too—more than she would have cared to confess, but she was determined to have her say and point a moral.
"That is what comes to those," she said, "who are without faith in their divine Maker."
"That is what comes to everybody sooner or later," said Edward sharply. "Cripples and idiots are sometimes born into the most pious families." His anger rose. "Alice didn't die because she was a pagan. Do you want to know why she died? I'll tell you. She died because when you gave birth to my brother James you brought a moral degenerate into the world."
He banged his fist upon the table so that all the dishes leaped, and then he rose and stormed out of the room.
Dear Mother never forgave those cruel and unchristian words about brother James. From the scorned Mrs. Ludlow she learned all about Anne, and of her poor, darling, wayward Edward's destination after he leaves this best of all possible worlds she is morally certain. Alice was never worthy of her James, anyway.
Edward took his nephew abroad and explained him to Anne. Sometimes she believes the explanation; but when it suits her temper she pretends that the child is one of Edward's many early indiscretions.
They took a little house in Versailles with a studio attached, and there Anne's baby was born. She made a great fuss about her sufferings, and was never the same ardent young woman afterward. Her dread of having another is one of the many little crosses that Edward has to carry. He has a whole sheaf of crosses—some little and some big.
There is his young nephew. The evil James seems to be looking at you out of the boy's eyes. Such affection as he shows is all to gain some end or other. But of course he has to be kept alive, and it costs a lot of money. James has long since ceased to contribute, and there is no way of compelling him except to write Ellen a letter and tell her the whole story. Ellen is so rich and so kind that she would help, of course; but Edward will never ask.
Edward's and Anne's little daughter takes after Anne. In her cradle she showed the same tempers and jealousies. Edward adores her and pities the poor man she will some day marry.
Edward succeeded in getting a divorce for Anne, and long after her tempers and her cruelties and her habit of washing soiled clothes in public had killed his love for her, they were married.
It isn't so easy to make a living as he thought it was going to be. He has regular illustrating to do, but if he stops long enough to paint a picture his income drops to nothing and Anne upbraids him for his selfishness.
It was his ambition to have the children grow up in America, and once when he had saved enough money he brought his little family over and took a house in Larchmont. Anne hated everything, including Dear Mother, and Dear Mother hated Anne back, and between them they made Edward so miserable and ashamed that at the end of three months he retreated to France.
Anne promised that if he took her back to France she would never be bad to him again. She was bad to him all the way over on the steamer, and will continue to be so at intervals until she dies.
Sometimes Edward wishes that the whole race of women was at the bottom of the sea. Then he thinks of James and imagines that it would be a better world if a good many of the men were there too.