After their quarrel which had terminated in so disastrous a manner, Mr. and Mrs. Johns had not again recurred to the subject of Gareth going to college. It seemed to be tacitly understood between them that they were never to refer to it. In compensation, Mr. Johns, for his part, said nothing more about inducting Gareth into his business. The boy himself was so entirely satisfied with his present mode of passing his hours, that he astonished his mother by making no more references to his future even when he was alone with her. She herself had introduced the topic once or twice, but he put her off with: Let us wait; perhaps father will change his mind, or There's plenty of time. I can get into Chicago without entrance examinations; I can even enter there after Christmas.
It was now late in August, and Gareth's attention was entirely concentrated. He consistently refused Chet Porter's invitations to play tennis; he deliberately ignored the crude blandishments of Clara Barnes; he did not even, now, see Lennie Colman, except occasionally, in passing, on the street, quite fortuitous and unfortunate encounters, when she spoke to him, he was aware, as if she were unbearably hurt. His days were entirely divided between the Countess and his study in the barn. With the first of these preoccupations the town was ringing, and it was only by virtue of that curious local code which prevented Mrs. Baker from learning of her husband's Chicago escapades that the scandal of Gareth's adventures was kept from the ears of his father and mother. As for the second, his collections no longer served to interest him, but he found his study a most desirable spot in which to indulge in sympathetic revery.
Gareth and the Countess spent part of every day together; sometimes the whole day; sometimes a portion of the evening. They went on long walks; they went bicycling; they went driving. They explored the surrounding country in every direction within a radius of twenty miles. To the boy these golden hours atoned for all the dulness and involuntary banality of his past. He was beginning, indeed, to enjoy the fulfilment of his yearnings, yearnings which had perceptibly developed in their scope, as his opportunities opened before him. He was quite certain now that something would happen, even if he had to make it happen, which, eventually, would carry him far away from the present, undesirable scene into realms where he might conceivably spread his wings with completer ease. His imagination, no longer fettered, now pictured college to him as a small and unimportant makeshift ambition. Now, rather, in his mind's eye, he stood before the Parthenon, rode the Argentina pampas, strolled nonchalantly into the Café de Paris at Monte Carlo, rested on the ancient stones at Taormina, below Ætna, invaded indifferently the depths of the Congo and the Colosseum at Rome, and, more frequently still and with the greatest delight of all, drove in an open carriage behind two horses in the Bois de Boulogne. Always, in these dream excursions, he was accompanied by a handsome, plump, red-haired woman, three times his age, who sat on the seat beside him or strolled with her hand on his arm. He had come, indeed, recognizing fully that some compromise is necessary in the primeval stages of any ambition, to regard the Countess as an essential factor in his immediate future. She was the way out, the prospective fulfiller of his visions, and he understood that in some inexplicable manner he signified to her a cognate form of release. Nevertheless, he could not help wondering why this woman who had lived with brilliant people in brilliant places, who had it in her power to occupy her apartment at Paris or her villas at Cannes and Settignano, had determined to visit her old home. Nor could he quite fathom why, once here, she had selected him as the beneficiary of her particular interest. The answers to these riddles were, in one sense, a mystery to him. His deep instinct, however, informed him that she was interested in him, that, quite possibly, he meant even more to her than she to him. His desirability lay, he was prone to believe, in his apparent freshness, his ostensible quality of having remained untouched, a quality, he knew, to be sure, to be a creation of her own fancy, but he made no effort to dislodge this error from her mind. Furthermore, he reflected, had she known everything there was to know, she might still have found him comparatively inexperienced. She could not, in any case, so long as he concealed the truth from her, have any conception of how much he had already lived in his imagination, how much he had already felt. Above all else, she could not be aware, he perceived, that he was prepared to leap all chasms, to break all bonds. It was impossible for her to realize that she had met, perhaps for the first time in her life, a boy who, however innocent of active participation, was almost entirely free from inhibitions, prejudices, who was intolerant only of superstitions, conventions, and village moral idiocies. It was quite apparent to him, almost from the outset, that a revelation of this fact might have the undesirable effect of destroying her interest. It was entirely conceivable that by far the greater part of her present feeling for him was created by her hope of conquering his imagined reluctance.
Sitting alone one day in his study among his books and photographs, he considered these matters. Before him, on his desk, in an engraved silver frame, stood a photograph of the Countess, taken by Reutlinger in Paris. It was a photograph in evening dress, full-figure. She was represented as descending a staircase; one foot, therefore, was poised below the other. Her robe was partially concealed by a brocaded velvet evening cape, bordered with broad bands of sable, but her throat, and her left arm to the elbow, were exposed. He scanned the tattooed arm. Often, in curiosity, he had stared at this arm, but he had refrained from questioning her concerning it. Never, indeed, had he asked her any personal questions, and she had, he reflected, imparted comparatively little information about herself save that she had loathed her husband. Gareth recalled how long it had been since the death of Nattatorrini. Since then, the boy was convinced, she must have experienced love, once, twice, perhaps many times. In spite of her reservations, there had been nothing awkward or amateurish about her approach. She had, he was assured, none of the silly reticences, silly, certainly, in a woman of middle-age, of Madame Walter. She would have, he knew, whatever happened, no vain regrets. She was not a foolish female diving at the last possible moment into a sea of passion in which she had hitherto refrained from even wetting her feet; of that he felt quite positive. No, her photographed face told him in this respect more even than he had derived from personal contact with her. It was the face of a woman who had never denied herself satisfaction of any nature whatever; God, in turn, had done his part, sending a great deal of experience, by which she had profited, her way. That was the explanation of her comparatively youthful appearance.
Her comparatively youthful appearance! How old was she? Gareth recalled her touched-up hair, the enamelling of her face, her well-rounded figure, the figure of maturity, the puffs and lines under her eyes. How little, for what he for the moment wanted, this mattered, after all. He was not searching for a slender, young girl, not, for instance, for Clara Barnes. He was not considering what he might do for a wife; in thinking of marriage, and he included the idea of marriage with the Countess within the range of possibility, he weighed in his mind what a wife might do for him. The Countess could do everything, everything, that is, that he wanted. She had it in her power to reveal to him all that his imagination had taught him about art, life, and the world in general. In the beginning, she could perform the initial service of freeing him from the environment which until now had stifled him, take him away from this cursed town for ever, to set him down in a milieu where he might expand and grow. To this end he was willing to make some primary sacrifices in the matter of taste.
There had not, he recalled, passed one word of love between them. That had been suggested rather than spoken, and suggested only by the Countess. At such moments, always on his guard, he had taken care to be more than usually provocatively aloof, indifferent. She was, he felt certain, a woman for whom friendship was only a degrading evasion of a franker emotion. Friendship, Brüderschaft, assuredly was not her goal. Consideration of this naïve duplicity on the part of the Countess brought a smile to his lips. No advances, however, must come from him. She must decide in her own way, in her own time, what to do, and how to do it. One false move and the structure he had erected with so much careful appearance of inappetency might totter and crumble. She might find him too eager, too lacking in the essential innocence she seemed to crave. Without any more actual experience with women than that which his relationships with Clara Barnes and Lennie Colman had afforded him, his instinct taught him this. He belonged, apparently, to that small class of individuals for whom initiative is an error, to that still smaller class, indeed, who recognize this fact. Where or how he was led, then, would depend entirely on the Countess. He was certain, however, that the time was fast approaching when she would make some kind of attack.
The Countess, as much as, possibly more than, Gareth was a prey to meditation. Whenever she was alone one name was in her thoughts, one prayer was on her lips. She, too, at heart, was utterly unfettered by inhibitions, prejudices, and conventions. Here in her old home, even less than in Paris, she really cared little about what people might say or do, if she got what she wanted. That was the qualifying point, however, she must get what she wanted. Therefore she proceeded with caution in the general direction of her goal. Meeting Gareth every day was something, a good deal, in fact, and when a suitable opportunity presented itself, when she had some inkling, some trifling intimation, of how much he understood of her desire, she would undertake to make the most of it. She must, however, until that opportunity offered itself, be patient. Gareth's demeanour and deportment, up to now, had given her no faint clue as to the actual state of his feelings. No doubt he was fond of her, interested in her, flattered by her attentions; she fascinated him, but that was a very different emotion from the object of her quest. She was on the verge, indeed, of submitting him to the extreme test that a passionate, middle-aged woman's love would set before him. 'Once she let herself go, there could be no turning back, and she could afford to take no chances on his escaping her. In Rouen, in Florence, she might have risked a refusal; in spite of it she could go on lavishing, demanding, but here in Maple Valley a refusal might precipitate a scandal of which one possible result would be the removal of Gareth out of her reach.
Occasionally, the Countess considered Lou, fully aware, at last, that the propinquity of kinswomen was very depressing. Ella wondered if Lou really believed she was living at all. Lou's existence seemed to be devoted to making clothes for orphans, paying calls, keeping house, and gossiping, and yet Lou seemed satisfied. There were women, it seemed, who could live on from day to day without a feeling for beauty, or a thought of love.
The relations between the two sisters had become exceedingly strained. With a curious form of delicacy, not at all rare with spinsters in provincial towns of America, Lou had stopped speaking to Ella about what was uppermost in her mind. She could not bring herself to beg her sister to refrain from seeing Gareth; she could not, indeed, bring herself to mention his name at all. Her manner, however, had altered; the expression of her face and tone was reproachful, and as time went on, the Countess devoting herself more and more to the object of her passion, choosing rather to see him than to attend euchre-parties, teas, picnics, and lap-suppers, arranged more or less in her honour, Lou's anxiety increased.
One day, while the ladies were sewing for the orphans at Mayme Townsend's, the Countess, as usual, absent, Lou's crestfallen air was sufficiently apparent to attract general attention. She had, earlier in the day, attempted to urge upon Ella the advisibility of attending this function, but her arguments had not been heeded. The Countess had declared, indeed, with her habitual frankness, that she had no intention of remaining indoors sewing when she might enjoy a long bicycle ride with her young cavalier. Reflection over this defeat was responsible for Lou's worried mien on this afternoon. Mayme Townsend who, like the others, had noted the signs of Lou's depression, whispered to her to remain after the other ladies had taken their departure.
Lou, she adjured her, when they were at last alone, it's a shame, but you must buck up. People are talking about you.
Lou began to cry. I know it, Mayme, she said. I just can't bear it any longer.
There, there, dear, Mayme Townsend attempted to console her. She waited a moment to enable Lou to acquire some control of herself, and then queried with slightly more severity (there was indeed a censorious note in her voice), Have you done anything about it? Have you talked to her?
It wouldn't do any good if I did, Lou moaned. She wouldn't pay any attention. You don't know how much she's changed. She isn't the Ella we used to know. She's no longer my little sister. I simply can't talk to her now.
I can talk to her, Mayme Townsend said with firmness, and I will.
Early the next morning, Ella, humming to herself, was strolling about the garden, enjoying the cool, bright day, and cutting asters, when the back-door swung open, and Mayme Townsend emerged from the house.
Hello, Mayme, the Countess hailed her, you're out early.
Yes, the other replied, adding significantly, I wanted to find you in.
The Countess frowned. What she said, however, was, We must see more of one another, Mayme. We haven't been very neighbourly lately, have we? But I'm not going away for some time. I haven't . . .
I know, Mrs. Townsend assented grimly. Then she continued, Ella, I want to talk with you. Can't we go inside?
The Countess frowned for the second time, but she replied casually, Certainly. Wait for me while I cut three or four more of these lovely asters. Slowly circling the bed, she carefully chose especially large blossoms before applying the scissors to their long stems. Now, I'm ready, she announced at last, gathering the stalks loosely in the curve of her elbow. Escorting Mayme back into the house, she selected a tall cut-glass vase, flaring at the top and set on a tumbler base, from a shelf in the butler's pantry.
Just a moment, she adjured her old friend as she filled the vase with water. Mayme stood silently by, fuming, while the Countess arranged the flowers.
There! Ella exclaimed. Aren't they lovely? I adore asters. Still followed by Mayme, she passed on into the dining-room and placed the vase in the centre of the table. Now, what can I do for you? Let's go into the library.
Although it was early morning the shutters in the library were as usual closed but one bar of light, speckled with dancing motes of dust, penetrated the semi-obscurity. The general impression of the room, however, with its heavy black-walnut furniture and woodwork, was cool and gloomy. The ladies sat in chairs facing each other.
Good gracious, Mayme, Ella expostulated, you look like a tragedy queen! What has happened to you?
It isn't anything that's happened to me that I came to see you about, Mrs. Townsend announced, severely. It is what has happened to you. She tapped the arm of her chair with her forefinger.
Indeed! The Countess frowned again.
Ella, you know that I never go round in circles, that I never equivocate. We're old friends, and I will come straight to the point.
The Countess remained silent. In her mind she was recalling certain incidents concerning which Mayme had not come straight to the point.
I've known you for a long time, Ella, and that ought to give me certain privileges. We played together as children; we went to school together. When you first came back to Maple Valley we saw a good deal of each other, but . . . now she adopted a deeply significant tone . . . I haven't seen very much of you lately. Nobody has seen very much of you lately, except . . . she hesitated.
Except, the Countess filled in promptly, Gareth Johns.
Mayme Townsend stared at her in amazement. The frankness of the Countess seemed brazen to her. Exactly, she remarked, flushing with excitement. Exactly. That's what I came to see you about. Ella, are you losing your mind? I came to warn you, for your own good: the whole town's talking about you.
I was sure of it, the Countess replied, coldly. They have so little to talk about aside from the water-works and the new depot.
Now, don't be sarcastic, Ella. Can't you see where this is heading? You must consider your position.
That is precisely what I do consider, my position.
The tone of the Countess would have warned any one sensitive to danger signals, but Mayme Townsend rushed blindly on, How can you be seen everywhere with that boy?
I was not aware that I was seen everywhere with him. I see him when I choose to, but my purpose has not been to arrange an exhibition. He happens to amuse and interest me . . . The Countess rose to her feet . . . However, I have no intention of defending my actions. I can't possibly conceive . . .
Yes, you can. You understand perfectly well what I mean. Ella, you're a middle-aged woman. You're as old as I am, and he's a boy seventeen years old. You are a Countess and he is the son of a wholesale grocer. Of course, if he only came to call on you here, it wouldn't be so bad, but you trapes all over the country with him. Ella, she pleaded, remember that this isn't Paris. They're saying terrible things about you . . . the worst, even. If you won't think of yourself, think of your sister.
I really can't see, Mayme . . . the Countess was white with anger now, but her voice was calm, incisive, bitterly cutting . . . how this is any of your business. The impertinence! she muttered, half to herself; then, turning back to her inquisitor: Why doesn't the town clean itself up first? Why not keep Fred Baker out of Chicago resorts?
Her fury was contagious: Mayme Townsend caught it. Ella, she cried, do you know what you are? You're an old sensualist! You judge everybody else, all of us, by your own rotten standards, and you think of nothing but sex. Why, you don't see this town at all except through dirty, coloured glass!
The Countess, paying no heed to this outburst, continued her catalogue of alternatives: Or ask Mrs. Cameron to stop taking morphia and making a fool of herself in public?
Ella!
Why don't you give advice to Sarah? Do you imagine, with your silly ostrich head in the sand, that the town isn't talking about your sister's relations with Dr. Sinclair? Why, the other day I saw them . . . hoarse with rage, the Countess paused.
Ella!
In any case, please don't attempt to tell me what I shall do. I shall do exactly what I please in every respect, and I shall permit you to do the same, provided you attend to your own business and don't interfere in mine.
At this point the Countess rushed abruptly from the room, leaving Mrs. Townsend to make her way alone out of the library and out of the house.
In her own bed-chamber, the Countess gave still freer play to her turbulent emotions. Marching back and forth, she shouted: Canailles! Chameaux! Idiots! Salopes! How dare they! How dare they! The bloody busy-bodies! It was a long time before she felt calm enough to sit down; when she did, as usual, she chose the chair before her mirror. For some time she examined her reflection. They will make an old woman of me, she cried, if I let them. What do they matter? Wiping her face with cold cream, she skilfully made up again. She was expecting Gareth.
By the time the boy arrived, she had succeeded in effacing the traces of her unbecoming emotion, but she was very quiet. Gareth, walking beside her, immediately sensitive to states of feeling in others, respected her mood. At last, when they were clear of the town, the Countess broke her silence.
Thank God! she exclaimed, we're out of the place. I wish it were for ever. It stifles me, all this narrowness, this meanness, this hideous meanness. Some day God will strike these fools dead.
I've felt that way many times, the boy replied, in full sympathy.
Let us forget them, she suggested. Why should I permit them to worry me?
Gareth sensed the cause of her momentary discomfiture, but he gave no sign to this effect.
Look! he cried. Look at that flight of blackbirds!
They stood on the bank of a little lake that was rapidly being filled in to make more land for the railroad-yards, and which, besides, served as a dumping-ground for the refuse of the town. Nevertheless, the view was picturesque: the bank grew thick with willows; the marsh-like water was spiked with watergrasses and cat-tails, here and there interrupted by a placid circle, spattered with the cups of yellow water-lilies and their circular, green pads.
It's beautiful, the Countess breathed softly. Why, she demanded, should you and I be the only ones to appreciate this country? It's just as lovely in its way as anything in France or England. Even those towers over there . . . she pointed to the railroad buildings, silhouetted against the sky . . . are just as handsome in their rugged way as the old castles of the Rhine barons. It's just this incapacity to understand beauty of any kind, physical or moral or unmoral, that shuts America off, prevents people like you and me from being really happy here. Why, as soon as a girl marries in Maple Valley, she begins to look dowdy. How can you expect a person who does not appreciate the beauty of this lake, or of your Bohemian village, to appreciate the beauty of sex? Some day, Gareth, she was now speaking with more intensity, you must visit me at Settignano. My villa there is small; everything about it is simple; but also everything about it is beautiful. On the hills in the green twilight, amongst the cypresses, the gnarled, old, grey-green olive trees, the oleanders and the daphnes, fauns dance and Pan plays his pipes, while the peasants listen to the pagan revels and enjoy them. Why, in Italy, they even tolerate the Catholic Church. Everybody belongs to it, but at heart the Italians are not Catholics: they tolerate the church but, at heart, they do not believe in it. They still worship Jove and Juno and Iris and Minerva and Mars and Hebe and Ceres and Vulcan. To this day they bow down before Venus and Cupid.
How wonderful! Gareth exclaimed.
Some day, sighed the Countess, you will comprehend all this more fully . . . She began to tremble. This was not the moment, she felt, not the time or the place, to make her declaration. They were still standing by the border of the lake. The sunlight was too bright. They might at any instant be interrupted. Forcing herself to introduce a new topic as a diversion, soon she was describing a brilliant entertainment at Paris, the great staircase with its flaming torcheres, bronze Negroes, underneath which the ladies, in their dazzling jewels, their gowns of silver and cloth of gold, descended.
Were you, by any chance, Gareth asked her, at the Charity Bazaar fire?
No, she responded solemnly, but I lost many friends in that terrible holocaust. One hundred and fifty people were burned. The Vicomtesse d'Avenal . . . the Duchesse d'Alencon. What an unhappy woman! After her engagement to her cousin, Ludwig of Bavaria, was broken, she never recovered from the blow. She was glad, I feel certain, to die.
They walked farther than usual that day and it was very late when they returned to town. As he mounted the steps of his home Gareth felt peculiarly elated. Never in his life before, indeed, had he experienced such a sense of ecstasy. His father met him at the door.
Gareth, where have you been? he asked, and Gareth was immediately conscious of an unaccountably gentle note in his father's voice. We've been looking for you all over.
From this last phrase Gareth caught an alarm. What is the matter, father? he demanded.
Your mother . . .
Dead?
Thank God, no, Gareth, but she is very ill. Dr. Sinclair says she must be taken to the hospital tonight. He will operate tomorrow.
Nor was the Countess's day ended. She had taken a bath and changed her dress before supper when a late caller was announced, a caller who did not ask for Lou. Somewhat puzzled, the Countess descended the staircase to greet Lennie Colman. A very long time had elapsed since she had asked Lennie to call; now, indeed, she had lost all interest in having her call. Nor was the Countess aware that Gareth and Lennie had been gteat friends. He, as a matter of fact, had never spoken of the school-teacher to Ella.
When the Countess entered the library she was not reassured by Lennie's manner. Self-consciously, the woman greeted her, and then seemed unable to utter another word. The Countess chattered about the weather, about people they both knew, finally, about anything that came into her head, but she was unable to elicit more than a simple negative or afirmative monosyllable from her caller. At last, giving up hope, she too sank into comparative silence. For a time they both sat together speechless in the dimly lit room. Presently, however, Lennie was able to shake off something of her reserve; she regained enough courage to speak.
I suppose, she began, that you're wondering why I came to see you.
Why, no, said the Countess. I asked you to come.
At least you should wonder why I have not come sooner.
I confess, the Countess responded, that that has puzzled me.
I'll tell you why, Lennie went on in a dull, dead voice. I didn't come because I hate you!
Completely astonished—she wondered if the woman were mad—the Countess could only echo interrogatively: Hate me? Why?
That's it. You don't know. That's why I had to make myself come to see you. I don't suppose he's ever told you how much he means to me?
The Countess began to comprehend. Nevertheless, she thought it advisable to feign to be still mystified.
I don't know in the least what you are talking about, Miss Colman.
Lennie covered her face with her palms and began to sob. Please, she begged, please give him back to me.
Give whom back to you? the Countess demanded.
You know! O, you must know! Gareth. You have so much and I have so little. He was the only bright spot in my life. Now you've taken him away. O, you can go to Europe, to your friends. Everything is open to you. But . . . there is nothing, nobody in this world for me but Gareth.
My dear Miss Colman, I'm afraid I don't understand, the Countess said. Do you mean that he was engaged to marry you?
O, no! He hasn't the slightest idea, not the slightest! You mustn't tell him how I feel! Promise me you won't tell him. He used to come to see me. We read together, talked together. Since he met you he has not been near me.
The woman was sobbing aloud. The Countess, reassured by what Lennie had said, treated her more kindly. There, there, she comforted her, stroking the girl's hands, don't cry. I didn't know about this . . . about your . . . I'll see what I can do. I'll ask him to call on you.
You will? Lennie stared at her.
Certainly, I'll do what I can.
Then he does love you! Then what they say is true! You can send him to me. You have that power! I hate you. I tell you, I hate you!