On the Stairs Part 10

"Where was his wife?" he asked. I told him she might easily be in the crowd on some other man's arm.

"Why were they there at all?" he demanded. And I did not tell him that probably they were there through his own wife's good offices.

That meeting on the stairs!--he made a grievance of it, an injury. The earlier meeting, with Johnny's own wife on his arm, had annoyed him as a general a.s.sertion of prosperity. This present meeting, with Raymond Prince's wife on Johnny's arm, exasperated him as a challenging a.s.sertion of power and predominance.

"I shall act," Raymond declared.

"Nothing rash," said I. "Nothing unconsidered, I hope."

"I shall act," he repeated. And he set his jaw more decisively than a strong man always finds necessary.

V

Raymond's mind was turning more and more to a set scene with McComas; some meeting between them was, to his notion, a _scene a faire_. It seemed demanded by a Gallic sense of form: it must be gone through with as a requisite to his role of offended husband.

One difficulty was that Raymond fluctuated daily, almost hourly, in his view of his wife--of _the_ wife, I may say. To-day he took the old view: the wife was her husband's property and any attempt on her was a deadly injury to him. To-morrow he took the newer view: the wife was an individual human being and a free moral agent; therefore a lapse, while it meant disgrace for her, was, for him, but an affront which he must endure with dignified composure.

Meanwhile the pair saw little of each other, and Albert, puzzled, began to enter upon his opportunity (a wide and lingering one it became) for learning adjustment to awkward and disconcerting conditions.

Well, Raymond had his meeting. Imagine whether it was agreeable. Imagine whether it was agreeable to me, in whose office it was held. Raymond had the difficult part of one who must act because he has deliberately committed himself to action, yet has no sure ground to act upon, and therefore no line to take with real effect. It was here and now that McComas turned his round face foursquare to his uncertain accuser, and let loose a steady, unspeaking stare from those hard blue eyes, and declared that nothing had occurred upon which an accusation could justly be based. He was emphatic; and he was blunt; the son and grandson of a rustic.

Nothing, he said. Had there really been nothing? You are ent.i.tled to ask. And I might be inclined to answer, if I knew. I simply don't. I was in position to know something, to know much; but everything?--no.

Think, if you please, of the many domestic situations which must pa.s.s without the full light of detailed knowledge--knowledge that comes too late, or never comes at all. Consider the simple, willful girl who marries impulsively on the a.s.sumption that the new acquaintance is a bachelor. Cases have been known where it developed that he was not.

Consider the phrase of the marriage service, "if any of you know just cause or impediment": who can declare that, in a given instance, some impediment, moral if not legal, might not be brought against either contracting party, however trustful the other? Consider the story of the anxious American mother who, alarmed by reports about a fascinating scoundrel under whom her daughter was studying music somewhere in mid-Europe, went abroad alone to investigate. Her letter to the awaiting father, back home, ran for page after page on non-essentials and dealt with the real point only in a brief, embarra.s.sed, bewildered postscript of one line: "Oh, William, _I don't know_!" Neither do I "know." But my account of later events may help you to decide the question for yourselves.

Raymond had set his mind on a divorce. If grounds could not be found in one quarter, they must be found in another. If McComas, that prime figure, was unable to bring aid, then there must be cooperation among the other and lesser figures. Raymond revived and reviewed the tales that had involved several younger men. The more he dwelt on them, the more inflamed he became, and the more certain that he had been wronged.

I did not accompany him through his proceedings--such advice as I had given him near the beginning was the advice simply of a friend. My own part of the great field of the law is a relatively unimpa.s.sioned one--office-work involving real-estate, conveyancing, loans, and the like. I suggested to Raymond the proper counsel for the particular case, and there, for a while, I left him.

His wife's parents came on from the East. The mother, after some years abroad, had lately resumed her domestic duties in the land of her birth.

The father, who knew all of one subject, and nothing of any other, detached himself for a week or two from the one worthy interest in life and accompanied her. The "street" was still there when he returned. They seemed experienced and worldly-wise in their respective fields and their respective aspects, but they entered upon this new matter with a poor grace. Here was another mother who did not quite "know," and another father who waited, at a second remove, for definite knowledge that did not quite come. First there were maladroit attempts to bring a reconciliation; and afterwards, and more shrewdly, endeavors to gain as much as possible for their daughter from the wreck.

Raymond was determined to keep possession of Albert. Mrs. McComas, mother of three, stoutly declared that the mother should have her child.

Other women said the same, and maintained the point regardless of the mother's course or conduct. Many women have said the same in many cases, and perhaps they are right. Perhaps they are completely right in the case of a boy of six, who surely needs a woman's care. But it is not difficult, even when material is more abundant than definite, to throw an atmosphere of dubiousness about a woman and to make it appear that she is not a "proper person...." So it appeared to the judge in this case, and so he ruled--with a shading, however. Albert might spend with his mother one month every summer--and some financial concession on Raymond's part helped make the time brief. However, she was to have nothing to say about Albert's mode of life through the rest of the year, and nothing (more specifically) about his education.

"That makes him mine," said Raymond.

And he set his lips firmly. He was one of those who set their lips firmly after the event is determined.

I do not know whether Raymond had any real affection for Albert. I do not know whether he realized what it was for a father to undertake, single handed, the charge of a boy of six. I think that what moved him chiefly was his determination to carry a point. However all this may be, I remember what he said as, after the decree, he walked out with Albert's hand in his.

"Well, it's over!"

Over!--as if a separation involving a child is ever "over"!

PART VI

I

His domestic difficulty left behind, Raymond settled down to a middle-aged life of dignity and leisure--or attempted to. But the trial had rather shaken the dignity, and the sole control of Albert ate into the leisure. There followed, naturally, a period of restlessness and discontent.

Those who imputed no blame to Raymond still felt it unfortunate, even calamitous, that he should not have learned how to get on with a young wife. But there were those that did blame him--blamed him for an unbending, self-satisfied prig who would have driven almost any spirited young woman to desperation. These disparaged him; sometimes--not always covertly--they ridiculed him. That hurt not only his dignity, but his pride.

Some of you have perhaps been looking for a generalized expression of general ideas--for some observations on marriage and divorce which should have the detachable and quotable quality of epigram. Yet suppose I were to observe, just here, that Marriage makes a promise to the ear and breaks it to the hope; or that Divorce is the martyr's crown after the tortures of Incompatibility; or that Marriage is the Inferno, the Divorce-Court the Purgatory, and Divorce itself the Paradiso of human life? You would not be likely to think the better of me, and I should certainly think less well of myself. Though I am conscious of a homespun quality of thought and diction, I must keep within the limits set me by nature, eschewing "brilliancy" and continuing to deal not in abstract considerations but in concrete facts.

Little Albert spent a good part of his time in a condition of bewilderment; he perceived early that he must not ask questions, that he must not try to understand. At intervals he ran noisily through the big house and made it seem emptier than ever. A nurse, or governess, or attendant of some special qualifications was required--even for the short time before he should begin his month with his mother, who was spending some months with her parents in the East. Even the preliminaries for this small event occasioned considerable thought and provoked a reluctant correspondence. His mother--prompted probably by her own mother--wrote on the subject of Albert's summer clothes. She wished to buy most of them herself. The Eastern climate in summer had its special points; also local usage in children's costuming must be considered--in detailed appearance her child must conform measurably to that particular juvenile society in which he was to appear. Then there was the nurse, or governess. Should Albert be brought on by her? And should she, once in the East, remain there to take him back; or...?

"Oh, the devil!" cried Raymond, in his library, as he turned page after page of diffuse discourse. "How long is she going to run on? How many more things is she going to think of?"

And she had felt impelled to address him, despite the cool tone of her letter, as "Dear Raymond." And that seemed to put him under the compulsion of addressing her, in turn, as "Dear Gertrude"! Truly, modes of address were scanty, inadequate.

Well, Albert went East (wearing some of the disesteemed things he already possessed) to be outfitted for the summer sh.o.r.es of New Jersey.

His governess took him as far as Philadelphia, where the Eastern connection met him, and "poored" him, sent the woman back home, and took him out on the shining sands. During the child's absence she made covers for the drawing-room sofas and chairs; the house, bereft of Albert and draped in pale Holland, became more dismal than ever.

Raymond, now left alone, was free to devise a way of life in single harness. He liked it quite as well as the other way. He told himself, and he told me, that he liked it even better. I believe he did; and I believe he was relieved by the absence of Albert, whose little daily regimen, even when directed by competent a.s.sistance, had begun to grind into his father's consciousness. I even believe that the one serious drawback in Raymond's comfortable summer was the need of studying over a school for Albert in the fall.

Raymond spent much of his time among his books. He had long since given up trying to "write anything"; less than ever was he in a mood to try that sort of exercise now. He looked over his shelves and resolved that he would make up a collection of books for the Art Museum. They were to be books on architecture, of which he had many. The Museum library, with hundreds of architectural students in and out, had few volumes in architecture, or none. He visioned a Raymond Prince alcove--those boys should be enabled to learn about the Byzantine buildings, just then coming into their own; and about the Renaissance in all its varieties, especially the Spanish Plateresque. He had a number of expensive and elaborate publications which dealt with that period, and with others, and he resolved to add new works from outside. He resumed his habit of going to book-auctions (though little developed at them), d.i.c.kered with local dealers who limited themselves to a choice clientele, and sent to London for catalogues over which he studied endlessly. He would still play the role of patron and benefactor. Perhaps he foresaw the time when the Museum would recognize donors of a certain importance by bronze memorial tablets set up in its entrance hall. Well, he would make his alcove important enough for any measure of recognition. It was all a work which interested him in its details and which was more in correspondence than a larger one with his present means.

II

Before my wife and I left for an outing on the seaboard, news came from that quarter about Gertrude and Albert. Intelligence even reached us, through the same correspondent, regarding Mrs. Johnny McComas. Mrs.

Johnny, with her three children, was frequenting the same sands and the same board walk. It was possible to imagine the arrangement as having been suggested by Raymond's one-time wife. See it for yourself. Mrs.

Raymond and Mrs. Johnny slowly promenading back and forth together, or seated side by side beneath their respective parasols or under some gay awning shared in common, while their authentic children played about them. What if people--whether friends, acquaintances, or strangers--_did_ say, "She is divorced"? There she was, with her own son plainly beside her and her closest woman friend giving her complete countenance. If a separation, who to blame? The husband, doubtless. In fact, there was already springing up in her Eastern circle, I was to find, the tradition of a dour, stiff man, years too old, with whom it was impossible to live.

It is unlikely that Gertrude, at any time--even at this time--would have been willing to rank Mrs. Johnny as her closest friend. But Mrs. Johnny had spoken a good word for her in a trying season, and at the present juncture her friendly presence was invaluable. She could speak a good word now--she was, so to say, a continuing witness. The two, I presume, were seen together a good deal, along with the children, especially Albert; and Mrs. Johnny, cooperating (if unconsciously) with Gertrude's mother, did much to stabilize a somewhat uncertain situation.

It was the understanding that Mrs. Johnny was in rather poor health this summer; the birth of her little daughter had left her a different woman, and the tonic of the sea-air was needed to remake her into her high-colored and energetic self. There was nothing especially reviving in the Wisconsin lakes, to which (placid inland ponds) they had confined their previous summer sojourns: and the vogue of the fresher resorts farther north on the greater lakes had not yet reached them. This year let the salt surf roll and the salt winds blow.

My wife and I, in our Eastern peregrinations, pa.s.sed a few days at the particular beach frequented by the two mothers. We really found in Mrs.

Johnny's aspect and carriage some justification for the incredible legend of her poor health. She walked with less vigor than formerly and was glad to sit down more frequently; and once or twice we saw her taking the air at her bedroom window instead of on the broad walk before the shops. Her boys played robustly on the sands, and would play with Albert--or rather, let him play with them--if urged to. But, like most twins, they were self-sufficing; besides, they were several years older.

To produce the full effect of team-work between the families required some perseverance and a bit of manoeuvring. The little girl was hardly two.

Gertrude and her mother welcomed us rather emphatically--too emphatically, we felt. The latter offered us politic lunches in the large dining-room of their hotel, and laid great stress upon our _provenance_ when we met her friends on the promenade. We seemed to be becoming a part of a general plan of campaign--p.a.w.ns on the board. This shortened our stay.

The day before we left, Johnny McComas himself appeared. He had found a way to leave his widely ramifying interests for a few odd hours. A man of the right temperament gains greatly by a temporary estival transplantation; and if Johnny always contrived to seem dominant and prosperous at home, he now seemed lordly and triumphant abroad. He "dressed the part": he was almost as over-appropriately inappropriate as little Albert himself. He played ostentatiously with his boys on the sands, and did not mind Albert as one of their eye-drawing party. He, whether his wife did or no, responded fully and immediately to the salt waves and the salt winds.

"Immense! isn't it?" he said to me, throwing out his chest to the breeze and teetering in his white shoes, out of sheer abundance of vitality, on the planks beneath him.

There was only one drawback: his wife was really not well. And he wondered audibly to me, while my own wife was having a few words near by with Gertrude, how it was that a young woman could, within the first year of her married life, bear twins with no hurt or harm, and yet weaken, later, through the birth of a single child.

"She doesn't seem at all lively, that's a fact," he said, with a possible touch of impatience. "But another two weeks will do wonders for her," he added: "she'll go back all right."