The Letter of the Contract Part 11

He had hardly seen her since their talk at Mountain Brook in the previous June. He had not gone again that summer to New Hampshire, and on the two or three occasions on which he had visited Bland's house in town she seemed to have retreated once more to her old place as the spirit of the furniture. He had made efforts to get nearer her, but she seemed to elude his approaches.

He knew she would not have summoned him without having something grave to say, and saw that his surmises were correct by her method of receiving him. She was not in the drawing-room, but in Emery Bland's library, with a background of bindings of red and blue and green and gold, a few Brangwyn and Meryon etchings, and one brilliant, sinister spot of color by Felicien Rops. There was a fire in the monumental fireplace, and as he entered, a log was just breaking in the middle and spluttering, across the tall, richly wrought French dog-irons.

It was the room of the successful New-Yorker who delights in giving himself all the indulgences of taste of which his youth has been deprived. The girl, dressed simply in some light stuff, and scarcely _decolletee_, seemed somewhat lost in the s.p.a.ciousness of her surroundings. She made no pretense at preliminary social small talk, going straight to her point. She did this by a repet.i.tion of the words with which she had opened the similar conversation at Mountain Brook.

"I've something to tell you." Having said this while they were shaking hands, she went on as soon as they were seated in the firelight:

"At least Uncle Emery had something to tell you, and I asked him to let me do it."

"Why?" He put the question rather blankly.

"Because I thought I could do it better." But she caught herself up at once. "No; not better. Of course, I can't do that. Only--only I _wanted_ him to let me do it."

Chip's heart bounded. Edith was in New York. She had heard of his condition. She was coming back to him. He was to have his reward for taking pity on Maggie Clare. His tongue and lips were parched as he forced out the words:

"Then it's good news--or you wouldn't want to break it?"

She was not visibly perturbed. Rather, she was pensive, sitting with an elbow resting on the arm of her chair, the hand raised so as to lay a forefinger on her cheek. "Don't you think that we often make news good or bad by our way of taking it?"

"That's asking me a question, when you've got information to give me.

What have you to tell me, Miss Bland?"

"I've something to tell you that will give you a great shock; so that I don't want to say it till I know you're prepared."

"Oh, prepared! Is one ever prepared? For G.o.d's sake, Miss Bland, what is it? Is one of the children hurt? Is one of them dead?"

"That would be a great grief. I said that this would be a great shock.

There's a difference--and one _can_ be prepared."

"Well, I am. Please don't keep me in suspense. Do tell me."

She sat now with hands folded in her lap, looking at him quietly. "No, you're not prepared."

"Tell me what to do and I'll do it," he said, nervously, "only don't torture me."

"One is prepared," she said, tranquilly, "by remembering beforehand one's own strength--by knowing that there's nothing one can't bear, and bear n.o.bly."

"All right; all right; I'll do that. Now please go on."

"But _will_ you?"

"Will I what?"

"Will you try to say to yourself: I'm a man, and I'm equal to this. It can't knock me down; it can't even stagger me. I'll take it in the highest way. I sha'n't let it degrade me or send me for help to degrading things--"

He flung his hands outward. "Yes, yes. I know what you're driving at. I promise. Only, for G.o.d's sake, tell me. Is it about--?"

"It's about Mrs. Walker."

"Yes, so I supposed. But what is it? Is she ill? Oh, she isn't dead?"

The cry made her eyes smart, but she kept control of her voice.

"No, she's not dead. She's not even ill. She's perfectly well, so I understand. But she's been--" The horror in his face, the way in which he leaned forward as though he would spring at her, warned her that he knew what was coming. She gave him time to get himself in hand by rising and taking the two or three paces to the fireplace, where she stood with a hand on the mantel-board, which was above her head, while she gazed into the embers. "She's been--married."

She didn't turn round. She knew by all the subtle unnamed senses that he was huddled in his big arm-chair in a state of collapse. For the minute there was nothing to say or do. Since the iron had to enter into his soul, it was better that it should be like this. It was better that it should be like this--with her there to keep him such company as one human being can keep for another at such an hour--better than if he were to learn it in the solitude of his own rooms, or in the unsustaining frigidity of a lawyer's office. She knew she didn't count for much, except for the fact--a detail only--that she was _with_ him in every nerve that helped her to sensation and every faculty she possessed.

So, after the minutes had pa.s.sed--ten, perhaps, or fifteen--instinct told her when to speak again. She did it without changing the position in which she stood, or turning for a glance toward him.

"You won't forget your promise?"

He spoke with the vacant, suffering tone of a sick child, or of a person so sunk into wretchedness as to find it hard to come up out of it.

"What?"

She repeated the words. "You won't forget your promise?"

His tone was still vacant--vacant and afflicted.

"What promise?"

"That you'd remember you're strong enough to bear it n.o.bly."

"But I'm not."

She turned partly. He was bent over in a crushed, stupid att.i.tude, his hands hanging limply between his knees. "Oh, Mr. Walker!"

He raised his forlorn eyes. "Why did you want to tell me?"

"Because I wanted to say _that_. I was afraid, if any one else did it, they'd leave it out."

He gazed at her long with a dull, unintelligent, unseeing expression.

When he spoke he was like a man who tries to get his wits together after delirium or unconsciousness. "Do you think I am--strong enough?"

"I _know_ you are."

He lumbered to his feet, staggering heavily to the chimney-piece, where he, too, laid his hands upon the mantel-board, which was just on a level with his height, bowing his forehead upon them. As he did so she moved away. Seeing his broad shoulders heave, and fearing she heard something smothered--was it a groan or a sob?--she slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

But when, some twenty minutes later, he himself came forth, his head bent, perhaps to hide his red eyes and his convulsed visage, he found her at the door of the dining-room, with a cup of tea in her hand.

"Drink this," she said, with gentle command.

He declined it with a shake of his head and an impatient wave of the hand.

"Yes, do," she insisted. "It's nice and hot. I'll have one, too."

Obediently he went into the dining-room. He drank the tea standing and in silence, in two or three gulps, while she, standing likewise, made a feint of pouring a cup for herself. He left without a good-night, beyond a hard, speechless wringing of her hand on his way to the door.

Two things seemed strange to Chip after that evening--the one, that the fight with Old Piper was ended; and the other, that in the matter of Edith's marriage, once the immediate shock had spent its strength, he bowed to the accomplished fact with a docility he himself could not understand. As for the fight with Old Piper, there was no longer a reason for waging it. In the new situation Old Piper had lost its appeal, from sheer inadequacy to meet the new need. The fact of the marriage he contrived to keep at a distance. He could do this the more easily because it was so monstrous. It was so monstrous that the mind refused to take it in, and he made no attempt to force himself. He asked neither whom she had married nor why she had married, nor anything else about her. It was a measure of safety. As long as he didn't know he was able to create a pretended fool's paradise of ignorance which, in his state of mind, was none the less a fool's paradise for being a pretense.

Even a fool's paradise was a protection. If it hadn't been for the children, he might not have heard so much as the man's name.