Absalom's Hair Part 10

She reddened again and sprang to her feet. "They can say what they please." After a pause she added: "But G.o.d knows I do not wish to make him unhappy."

To conceal her emotion she turned away from them, but the wife would not give up. She suggested that Angelika should write to Rafael without further delay, to set him free and let him return home to his mother; there they would be able to arrange matters. Angelika was so capable that she could earn a living anywhere. Rafael too ought to help her.

"I shall write to his mother," Angelika said. "She shall know all about it, so that she may understand for what he is responsible."

This they thought reasonable, and Angelika sat down and wrote. She frequently showed agitation, but she went on quickly, steadily, sheet after sheet. Just then came a ring--a messenger with a letter. The maid brought it in. Her mistress was about to take it, but it was not for her; it was for Angelika--they both recognised Rafael's careless handwriting.

Angelika opened it--grew crimson; for he wrote that the result of his most serious considerations was, that neither she nor her children should be injured by him. He was an honourable man who would bear his own responsibilities, not let others be burdened by them.

Angelika handed the letter to her friend, then tore up the one which she had been writing, and left the house.

Her friend stood thinking to herself--The good that is in us must go bail for the evil, so we must rest and be satisfied.

The discovery which she had made had often been made before, but it was none the less true.

CHAPTER 5

The next day they were married. That night, long after his wife had fallen into her usual healthy sleep, Rafael thought sorrowfully of his lost Paradise. HE could not sleep. As he lay there he seemed to look out over a meadow, which had no springtime, and therefore no flowers.

He retraced the events of the past day. His would be a marred life which had never known the sweet joys of courtship.

Angelika did not share his beliefs. She was a stern realist, a sneering sceptic, in the most literal sense a cynic.

Her even breathing, her regular features, seemed to answer him.

"Hey-dey, my boy, we shall be merry for a thousand years! Better sleep now, you will need sleep if you mean to try which of us is the stronger."

The next day their marriage was the marvel of the town and neighbourhood.

"Just like his mother!" people exclaimed; "what promise there was in her! She might have chosen so as to have been now in one of the best positions in the country--when, lo and behold! she went and made the most idiotic marriage. The most idiotic? No, the son's is more idiotic still." And so on and so forth.

Most people seem naturally impelled to exalt the hero of the hour higher than they themselves intend, and when a reaction comes, to decry him in an equal degree. Few people see with their own eyes, and on special occasions even magnifying or diminishing gla.s.ses are called into play with most amusing results.

"Rafael Kaas a handsome fellow?--well, yes, but too big, too fair, no repose, altogether too restless. Rich? He? He has not a stiver! The savings eaten up long ago, nothing coming in, they have been encroaching on their capital for some time; and the beds of cement stone--who the deuce would join with him in any large undertaking? They talk about his gifts, his genius even; but IS he very highly gifted? Is it anything more than what he has acquired? The saving of motive power at the factory? Was that anything more than a mere repet.i.tion of what he had done before?--and that, of course, only what he had seen elsewhere."

Just the same with the hints which he had given. "Merely close personal observation; for it must be admitted that he had more of that than most people; but as for ingenuity! Well, he could make out a good case for himself, but that was about the extent of his ingenuity."

"His earlier articles, as well as those which had recently appeared on the use of electricity in baking and tanning--could you call those discoveries? Let us see what he will invent now that he has come home, and cannot get ideas from reading and from seeing people."

Rafael noticed this change--first among the ladies, who all seemed to have been suddenly blown away, with a few exceptions, who did not respect a marriage like his, and who would not give in.

His relations, also, held somewhat aloof. "It was not thus that he showed himself a true Ravn. He was so in temperament and disposition, perhaps, but it was just his defect that he was only a half-breed."

The change of front was complete: he noticed it on all hands. But he was man enough, and had sufficient obstinacy as well, to let himself be urged on by this to hard work, and in his wife there was still more of the same feeling.

He had a sense of elevation in having done his duty, and as long as this tension lasted it kept him up to the mark. On the day of his marriage (from early in the morning until the time when the ceremony took place) he employed himself in writing to his mother; a wonderful, a solemn letter in the sight of the All-Knowing,--the cry of a tortured soul in utmost peril.

It depended on his mother whether she would receive them and let their life become all that was now possible. Angelika--their business, manager, housekeeper, chief. He--devoted to his experiments. She--the tender mother, the guide of both.

It seemed to him that their future depended on this letter and the answer to it, and he wrote in that spirit. Never had he so fully depicted himself, so fully searched his own heart.

It was the outcome of what he had lived through during these last few days, the mellowing influence of his struggles during the night watches. Nothing could have been more candid.

He was pained that he did not receive an answer at once, although he realised what a blow it would be to her. He understood that, to begin with, it would destroy all her dreams, as it had already destroyed. But he relied on her optimistic nature, which he had never known surpa.s.sed, and on the depth of her purpose in all that she undertook. He knew that she drew strength and resolution from all that was deepest in their common life.

Therefore he gave her time, notwithstanding Angelika's restlessness, which could hardly be controlled. She even began to sneer; but there was something holy in his antic.i.p.ation: her words fell unheeded.

When on the third day he had received no letter, he telegraphed, merely these words: "Mother, send me an answer." The wires had never carried anything more fraught with unspoken grief.

He could not return home. He remained alone outside the town until the evening, by which time the answer might well have arrived. It was there.

"My beloved son, YOU are always welcome; most of all when you are unhappy!" The word YOU was underlined. He grew deadly pale, and went slowly into his own room. There Angelika let him remain for a while in peace, then came in and lit the lamp. He could see that she was much agitated, and that every now and then she cast hasty glances at him.

"Do you know what, Rafael? you ought simply to go straight to your mother. It is too bad, both on account of our future and hers. We shall be ruined by gossip and trash."

He was too unhappy to be contemptuous. She had no respect for anybody or anything, he thought; why, then, should he be angry because she felt none, either for his mother or for his position in regard to her? But how vulgar Angelika seemed to him, as she bent over a troublesome lamp and let her impatience break out! Her mouth but too easily acquired a coa.r.s.e expression. Her small head would rear itself above her broad shoulders with a snake-like expression, and her thick wrist--

"Well," she said, "when all is said and done, that disgusting h.e.l.lebergene is not worth making a fuss over."

Now she is annoyed with herself, he thought, and must have her say. She will not rest until she has picked a quarrel; but she shall not have that satisfaction.

"After all that has been said and all that has happened there--"

But this, too, missed fire. "How could I have supposed that she could manage my mother?" He got up and paced the room. "Is that what mother felt? Yet they were such good friends. I suspected nothing then. How is it that mother's instinct is always more delicate? have I blunted mine?"

When, a little later, Angelika came in again, he looked so unhappy that she was struck by it, and she then showed herself so kind and fertile in resource on his behalf, and there was such sunshine in her cheerfulness and flow of spirits during the evening, that he actually brightened up under it, and thought--If mother could have brought herself to try the experiment, perhaps after all it might have answered. There is so much that is good and capable in this curious creature.

He went to the children. From the first day he and they had taken to each other. They had been unhappy in the great pension, with a mother who seldom came near them or took any notice of them, except as clothes to be patched, mouths to feed, or faults to be punished.

Rafael had in his nature the unconventionality which delights in children's confidence, and he felt a desire to love and to be loved.

Children are quick to feel this.

They only wasted Angelika's time. They were in her way now more than ever; for it may be said at once that, Rafael had become EVERYTHING to her. This was the fascination in her, and whatever happened, it never lost its power. Her tenderness, her devotion, were boundless. By the aid of her personal charm, her resourceful ingenuity, she obtained every advantage for him within her range, and even beyond it. It was felt in her devotion by night and day, when anything was to be done, in an untiring zeal such as only so strong and healthy a woman could have had in her power to render. But in words it did not show itself, hardly even in looks: except, perhaps, while she fought to win him, but never since then.

Had she been able to adhere to one line of conduct, if only for a few weeks at a time, and let herself be guided by her never-failing love, he would, in this stimulating atmosphere, have made of his married life what his mother, in spite of all, had made of hers.

Why did not this happen? Because the jealousy which she had aroused in him and which had drawn him to her again was now reversed.

They were hardly married before it was she who was jealous! Was it strange? A middle-aged woman, even though she be endowed with the strongest personality and the widest sympathy, when she wins a young husband who is the fashion--wins him as Angelika won hers--begins to live in perpetual disquietude lest any one should take him from her.

Had she not taken him herself?

If we were to say that she was jealous of every human being who came there, man or woman, old or young, beside those whom he met elsewhere, it would be an exaggeration, but this exaggeration throws a strong light upon the state of things, which actually existed.

If he became at all interested in conversation with any one, she always interrupted. Her face grew hard, her right foot began to move; and if this did not suffice, she struck in with sulky or provoking remarks, no matter who was there.

If something were said in praise of any one, and it seemed to excite his interest, she would pooh-pooh it, literally with a "pooh!" a shrug of the shoulders, a toss of the head, or an impatient tap of the foot.