The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton Volume 2 Part 23

At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street, but she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the farther corner. There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied the policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the nearest side street... After that she walked a long time, vaguely... Night had fallen, and now and then, through the windows of a pa.s.sing carriage, she caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera cloak...

Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in which she had once lived--her first husband's house. The blinds were drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a man walked by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a heavy middle-aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders, the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his overcoat.

He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew forth a latch-key, and let himself in...

There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against the area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house. The feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea still throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural clearness.

Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving quickly away, she too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the house. The impulse which had carried her there prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the electric bell--then she felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and grasped the bal.u.s.trade for support. The door opened and a young footman with a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an instant that he would admit her.

"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to see me for a moment?"

The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for dinner, madam."

Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me--I will not detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on the drawing-room door.

"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?"

Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady," she returned carelessly.

The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears.

It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the change in his appearance. He had thickened, coa.r.s.ened, settled down into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one conscious thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she must not let him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body throbbed with the urgency of her message.

She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she said.

Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a "scene"

predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: "Will you come this way?"

He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged: time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles of the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was carrying these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was centred in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would refuse to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her purpose melt before it, words and arguments running into each other in the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself thrust out before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: "You are not well."

The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind--a voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen developments.

She supported herself against the back of the chair and drew a deep breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued, with a cold embarra.s.sed politeness.

Julia raised an entreating hand. "No--no--thank you. I am quite well."

He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. "Then may I ask--?"

"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see you.

There is something I must tell you."

Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he said.

"I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to make could have been made through our lawyers."

"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think they could help me--this time."

Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any question of help--of course--"

It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy--or even in money...

The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change slowly to perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that lumbering scenery with a word. For the first time it struck her that she had been cruel.

"There IS a question of help," she said in a softer key: "you can help me; but only by listening... I want to tell you something..."

Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier to--write?" he suggested.

She shook her head. "There is no time to write... and it won't take long." She raised her head and their eyes met. "My husband has left me,"

she said.

"Westall--?" he stammered, reddening again.

"Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me."

The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his embarra.s.sed glance returned to Julia.

"I am very sorry," he said awkwardly.

"Thank you," she murmured.

"But I don't see--"

"No--but you will--in a moment. Won't you listen to me? Please!"

Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between him and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything--I thought we were--perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me... there is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her..." As she spoke, the lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once more to the exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her throat swelled with it, and two painful tears burnt a way down her face.

Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This--this is very unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law--"

"The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his freedom?"

"You are not obliged to give it."

"You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did."

He made a protesting gesture.

"You saw that the law couldn't help you--didn't you?" she went on.

"That is what I see now. The law represents material rights--it can't go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law... the obligation that love creates... being loved as well as loving... there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered... is there?" She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a bewildered child. "That is what I see now... what I wanted to tell you. He leaves me because he's tired... but I was not tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's the dreadful part of it--the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it meant.

But I've been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me--things I hadn't noticed... when you and I..." She moved closer to him, and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond words. "I see now that YOU didn't understand--did you?"

Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to be lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled.

"No," he said, "I didn't understand."

She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came... You saw your life falling in ruins... the world slipping from you... and you couldn't speak or move!"

She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now I know--now I know," she repeated.

"I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer.

She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you to be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me... for not understanding that YOU didn't understand... That's all I wanted to say." She rose with a vague sense that the end had come, and put out a groping hand toward the door.

Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile.

"You forgive me?"