Part 16 (1/2)
”Our set,” he laughed, ”but that is not the whole world, alas!”
”I know that men--well bred, cultivated, refined, even honorable men,--seem to be able to repeat every emotion of life. A woman scales the heights but once. Hence it must depend, in the case of women capable of deep love--on the men whether the relation into which marriage betrays them be decent or indecent. What I should like to be able to discover is--what provision does either man or civilization propose to make for the woman whom Fate, in wanton irony, reduces, even in marriage, to the self-considered level of the girl in the street?”
There was amazement--even a foreboding--on Shattuck's face as he paused in his walk, and, for the first time speaking anxiously e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”I swear I don't follow you!”
She went on as if she had not been interrupted, as if she had something to say which had to be said, as if she were reasoning it out for herself: ”Take my case. I don't claim that it is uncommon. I do claim that I was not the woman for the situation. I was an only child.
My father's marriage had not been happy. I was brought up by a disappointed man on philosophy and pessimism.”
”Old sceptics, and modern scoffers. I remember it well.”
”Before I was out of my teens, I had imbibed a mistrust for all emotions. Perhaps you did not know that? You may have thought, because they were not all on the outside, that I had none. My poor father had hoped, with his teachings, to save me from future misery. He had probably thought to spare me the commonplace sorrows of love. But he could not.”
”There is one thing, my child, that the pa.s.sing generation cannot do for its heirs--live for them--luckily. Why, you might as well forbid a rose to blossom by word of mouth, as try to thwart nature in a beautiful healthy woman.”
”It seems to me that to bring up a woman as I was brought up only prepares her to take the distemper the quicker.”
”I do not remember that of you. But I do know that no woman was ever wooed as hotly as you were--or ever--I swear it--more ardently desired. No woman ever led a man the chase you led me. If ever in those days you were as anxious for my love as you have said you were this evening, no one would have guessed it, least of all I.”
”My reason had already taught me that mine was but the common fate of all women: that life was demanding of me the usual tribute to posterity: that the sweetness of the emotion was Nature's trick to make it endurable. But according to Nature's eternal plan, my heart could not listen to my head--it beat so loud when you were by, it could not hear, perhaps. But there was something of my father's philosophy left in me, and when I was alone it would speak, and be heard, too. Even when I believed in you--because I wanted to--and half hoped that all my teaching was wrong, I made a bargain with myself. I told myself, quite calmly, that I knew perfectly well all the possibilities of the future. That if I went forward with you, I went forward deliberately with open eyes, knowing what, logically, I might expect to find in the future. Ignorance--that blissful comfort of so many women,--was denied me. Still, the spell of Nature was upon me, and for a time I dreamed that a depth of pa.s.sionate love like mine, a life of loyal devotion might wrap one man round, and keep him safe--might in fact, work a miracle--and make one polygamous man monogamous. But, even while that hope was in my heart, reason rose up and mocked it, bidding me advance into the Future at my peril. I did it, but I made a bargain with myself, I agreed to abide the consequences--and to abide them calmly.”
”And during all those days when I supposed we were so near together--you showed me nothing of this that was in your heart.”
”Men and women know very rarely anything of the great struggles that go on in the hearts of one another. Besides, I knew how easily you would reply--naturally. We are all on the defensive in this life. It was with things deeper than words that I was dealing--the things one _does_--not says. Even in the early days of our engagement I knew that I was not as essential to you as you were to me. Life held other interests for you. Even the flattery of other women still had its charm for you. Young as I was, I said to myself: 'If you marry this man--with your eyes open--blame yourself, not him, if you suffer.' I do believe that I have been able to do that.”
Shattuck was astride his chair again, his elbows on the back, his chin in his hands. He no longer responded. Words were dangerous. His lips were pressed close together, and there was a long deep line between his eyes.
”My love for you absorbed every other emotion of my life. But I seemed to lack some of the qualities that aid to reconcile other wives to life. I seemed to be without mother-love. My children were dear to me only because they were yours. The maternal pa.s.sion, which in so many women is the absorbing emotion of life, was denied me. My children were to me merely the tribute to posterity which Life had demanded of me as the penalty of your love--nothing more. I must be singularly unfitted for marriage, because, when the hour came in which I felt that I was no longer your wife, your children seemed no longer mine.
They merely represented the next generation--born of me. I know that this is very shocking. I have become used to it,--and, it is the truth. I have not blamed you, I could not--and be reasonable. No man can be other than Nature plans or permits, but how I have pitied myself! I have been through the tempest alone. In spite of reason,--in spite of philosophy--I have suffered from jealousy, from shame, from rage, from self contempt. But that is all past now.”
She had not raised her voice, which seemed as without feeling as it was without emphasis. She carefully examined her handkerchief corner by corner, and he noticed for the first time how thin her hands had become.
”Naturally,” she went on in that colorless voice, ”my first impulse was to be done with life. But I could not bring myself to that, much as I desired it. It would have left you such a wretched memory of me.
You could never have pardoned me the scandal--and I felt that I had at least the right to leave you a decent recollection of me.”
Shattuck's head fell forward on his arms.--The idea of denial or protest did not occur to him.
The steady voice went monotonously on. ”I could not bear to humble you in the eyes of others even by forcing you to face a scandal. I could not bear to humble you in your own eyes by letting you suspect that I knew the truth. I could not bring myself to disturb the outward respectability of your life by interrupting its outward calm. To be absolutely honest--though I had lost you, I could not bring myself to give you up,--as I felt I must, if I let any one discover--most of all you--what I knew. So, like a coward, I lived on, becoming gradually accustomed to the idea that my day was past, but knowing that the moment I was forced to speak, I would be forced to move on out of your life. Singularly enough, as I grew calm, I grew to respect this other woman. I could not blame her for loving you. I ended by admiring her.
I had known her so well--she was such a proud woman! I looked back at my marriage and saw the affair as it really was. I had not _sold_ myself to you exactly--I had loved you too much to bargain in that way; nevertheless, the marriage had been a bargain. In exchange for your promise to protect and provide for me,--to feed me, clothe me, share your fortune with me, and give me your name, I had given you myself,--openly sanctioned by the law, of course--I was too great a coward to have done it otherwise, in spite of the fact that the law gives that same permission to almost any one who asks for it.”
”Naomi,” he groaned from his covered mouth, ”what ghastly philosophy.”
”Isn't that the marriage law? How much better am I after all than the poor girl in the street, who is forced to it by misery? To be sure, I believe there is some farcical phrase in the bargain about promising to love none other,--a bare-faced attempt to outwit Nature,--at which Nature laughs. Yet this other woman, proud, high-minded, unselfish, hitherto above reproach, had given herself for love alone--with everything to lose and nothing to gain. I have come to doubt myself. I have had my day. For years it was an enviable one. No woman can hope for more. What right have I to stand in the way of another woman's happiness? A happiness no one can value better than I, who so long wore it in security. I bore my children in peace, with the divine consolation of your devotion about me. What right have I to deny another woman the same joy?”
Shattuck sprang to his feet.
”It's not true!” he gasped. ”It's not true!”
The woman never even raised her eyes. She went on carefully inspecting the filmy bit of lace in her hands.