The Preliminaries Part 10

She figured herself as always holding her breath, as always waiting for something, while she lived there. It was not until she was twelve (four years after Clarissa Charleroy left her husband), that Marvel, to her own childish apprehension, began to fill her lungs, began, indeed, to live.

It will be inferred that the catastrophe, so clearly outlined on that April afternoon fifteen years earlier, did, in {152} fact, occur. For various reasons, it did not take place immediately. For one thing, it required time for Clarissa to put herself into touch with causes that desired to be "promoted" by her silver tongue and wistful, winning ways. Then, too, there were moments when she wavered. So long as Paul could maintain that pose, achieved with great effort, of good-natured, sarcastic scoffing at their tragedy, Clarissa herself did not believe in it wholly. Sometimes they drew very near together. A debonair, indifferent Paul who jested about her "calling" attracted her. A Paul who could demand cheerfully as he took his second cup of coffee, "Well, Clarissa, am I the Tyrant Man this morning?" was not unlikely to elicit the answer, "No, not to-day, Paul. You're just own folks to-day." But a Paul who had heard the wolf howling at the door {153} of his heart, who looked at her with eyes in which she saw fear and the shadow of a broken life, repelled her utterly. Women are reputed to be soft-hearted. Paul Charleroy, musing upon his own predicament in those days, remembered this age-long superst.i.tion with wonder.

In spite of various respites, a catastrophe which is latent in a temperament will, some day, come to pa.s.s unless, of course, the owner of the temperament decides to be absolute master of himself. Nothing was further from Clarissa's thought than to recapture her married happiness by an a.s.sault on her own disposition.

It is not good to linger over this portion of their story. Clarissa did, finally, take over the task of reforming as much of humanity as she could persuade to see the need of it, and she laid {154} aside the business of looking after her husband and her child. Miss Josephine Charleroy, ten years her brother's senior, and competent rather than sympathetic, a.s.sumed these discarded responsibilities.

By slow degrees, Paul Charleroy's circ.u.mstances became less straitened. He did place his text-book well, and derived a considerable income therefrom; on the death of old Dr. Lettarby he succeeded to the full professorship, with the munificent salary of twenty-five hundred a year. Last of all, some time after Clarissa and he were made free of each other by legal means, he did actually marry Evelyn Ames.

Thus, it will be seen, Clarissa's forecasts were fulfilled. Her notions were absolutely practicable; they really, all of them, worked, and worked well. In the long run they even worked {155} beneficently, but one prefers to attribute this to the mercy of Providence rather than to the foresight of Clarissa.

Marvel Charleroy was twelve years old when her father married again, and life began for her. The little girl noted, dimly at first, then with growing wonder and appreciation, how interesting the commonplace things became under the new rule. Though her frocks were simple as ever, their adaptation to her self made it a pleasure to wear them; she seemed suddenly to have acquired a definite place in the family life, a position with duties and with compensating pleasures. Her friendships were considered, her friends noticed and welcomed. For the first time she felt herself an individual. Somebody was interested in what she did and said and thought. Her own shy young consciousness of personality was reflected {156} back to her, strengthened, and adorned. She perceived with something like awe that the girl named "Marvel" did not live only in her breast. Her father and his wife knew a Marvel whom they believed to be industrious and clever, loving and helpful. These qualities were multiplied tenfold by her perception that they were looked for from that Marvel whom the heads of the house seemed so happy to own and to cherish.

The child throve. She who had wondered vaguely at the stress laid by her books upon the satisfactions of home, now tasted thirstily of that delight. And she repaid the miracle of Evelyn's tenderness with the whole of an ardent heart.

To her elders, the years went fast. Suddenly, as it seemed, Marvel was a young woman with more than her fair {157} share of gifts and graces.

She was exquisitely pretty, with an effective little style of her own; she made a brilliant record as a student; she had the rich endowment of easy popularity. Further, she seemed to possess, so far as slight experiments could demonstrate, that rare thing, the genuine teacher's gift. Something of her father's pa.s.sion for scholarship, something of her mother's silver-lipped persuasiveness, met in the girl and mingled with certain deep convictions of her own.

The practical outcome of all this was the suggestion that her Alma Mater, Midwest, would be glad to attach her to its teaching force without insisting upon an additional degree. She had spent one year abroad since her graduation, part of which was occupied in study. But, like many young Americans, she found her own {158} reflections on the Old World more stimulating than any instruction offered her there.

Now she was at home, ready to begin work in September, enthusiastic, almost effervescent, with her satisfaction in the arrangement of her own little world.

Coming into the shaded house, out of the blaze of the July sunshine, she dropped her father's letters on the desk in his study, and ran upstairs to read her own. It was quite an hour before she heard him calling at the foot of the stair,--

"Marvel! Come down, daughter, I want you."

Something in his voice--she did not know what--gave her a thrill of apprehension. She had never heard just that tone from him before.

{159}

She found Professor and Mrs. Charleroy waiting for her in the living-room. Their faces were grave and troubled. Marvel's apprehensive pang mingled with a curious little resentment that her nearest and dearest could allow themselves to look thus, all on a summer morning, in this highly satisfactory world.

"Daughter, I have a letter here," her father began at once, "a letter from your mother. It concerns you more than any one. The question it involves is one for you to decide. I ought not to conceal from you my belief that you will need to consider the matter very carefully."

Marvel took the letter with gravity, hoping that this portentous seriousness was misplaced. This is what she read:--

MY DEAR PAUL,--You remember, of course, that when we separated, it {160} was with the understanding that Marvel was to come to me when she was fifteen or sixteen. But, as you urged, when I brought the matter up at that time, she was then just completing her preparation for college. Since she desired college training, it was certainly easier and simpler for her to have it at Midwest than elsewhere. I put aside my own preferences, because the arguments in favor of her remaining with you were weighty. But it does not seem to me just or right that I should be deprived of my daughter's society entirely, because I waived my preference as to her education. I feel that she has been deprived of my influence, and I of her companionship, already too long.

As I understand it, she graduated a year ago, and has since been abroad. It seems to me this winter will be an {161} excellent time for her to come to me. I shall have an apartment in Chicago, and she will find it easy to arrange for post-graduate work if she desires.

I shall be less busy than usual, for my health has given way a little under the strain of my work, and the doctor has warned me to rest as much as possible. I am looking forward with pleasure to introducing her to my friends, my life, my ideas.

When will it be most convenient for her to come? I should say about the first of October.

As ever, my dear Paul, Your sincere friend, CLARISSA CHARLEROY.

"Well, really!"

Marvel dropped the letter on the floor and turned to face her family with more than a suggestion of belligerence. {162} Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes burning, and her head held high with a little air that reminded her auditors swiftly and inevitably of Clarissa Charleroy's self.

"Dear people, what do you look so frightened for?" she demanded. "I call it very cheeky of my mother to make such a demand of me. Does n't she realize that I'm a person with a career of my own--and that when I'm not busy with that, I have to keep my eye on you two! I have n't the slightest intention of leaving home--so you need n't look like _that!_"

Marvel's little harangues usually met with instant response from her family. They were wont to brighten and become argumentative, even when they disagreed. But neither of them answered this p.r.o.nouncement.

Her father sat by an open window, {163} looking out upon the garden's gayety with unseeing eyes. His wife sat at an other window watching him wistfully, while Marvel faced them both from the hearth, offering her cheerful young defiance for their approval.

Their silence, their gravity, startled the girl. She looked from one face to the other in quick scrutiny. What did this mean? For perhaps the first time in her life, it flashed through her mind that, after all, she knew nothing of the inner att.i.tude of these two people, whom she greatly loved, toward the two facts which had made them all one household--her mother's divorce, namely, and her father's remarriage.

The whole structure of three united, happy lives was built upon these cataclysmal facts--yet she had never asked what thought they held of them! Dignified, delicate, scrupulous, she {164} knew them both to be.

Through what anguish and uncertainty might they not have pa.s.sed before they clasped hands at last, making of their two hearts a shelter for her robbed, defenseless one?

Her manner changed on the instant.

"Dear family, you don't _want_ me to go? Surely--why--you _can't_ want me to go?"

"No," said Evelyn in a low voice, "dearest, no. Certainly we don't want you to go. Only--"

"But my work!" cried Marvel, pa.s.sionately, answering their faces, not their words. "I want to do it so much! How can I possibly leave my work? And you, and my life here--everything!"

Her father turned his face farther toward the window, looking out blindly, but Marvel caught his expression--the {165} look of one who tastes again an ancient bitterness. She did not know its full meaning, but her sympathy leaped to meet it. Evelyn Charleroy, watching her, felt a sudden stirring of pride in the girl's swift response to another's need, her quick tenderness. It was thus that Evelyn saw the life of woman--as one long opportunity for the exercise of these qualities.

"Darlingest father, of course I'm not going to leave you. Still, if I were--what is mother like? What does she expect? What am I to do if I go to her?"

"She is a brilliant woman," answered Professor Charleroy. "In many ways you are not unlike her, Marvel, in mental alertness and all that.

As for what she expects--G.o.d knows!"

The girl pursued her point. "It is n't an occupation--to be a brilliant {166} woman. I'm not quite sure, even, what she does. She lectures? She is philanthropic, or humanitarian, or something like that? Does she write?"

"No," answered the professor, choosing his words with evident and conscientious care. "That is not her gift. She has the endowment of convincing speech. She has used it admirably for many admirable causes-- and quite as ably for other causes that I esteem less. But that, you understand, is my personal point of view. Her chief interest, however, has been the so-called advancement of women, and you might describe her as one of the many inconspicuous promoters of that movement.

Chiefly, at present, she is holding cla.s.ses, giving parlor-talks, what-not, in which she paraphrases and popularizes the ideas of her leaders. Her personality, though winning, does not {167} carry far, and she is only effective before a handful of people. Her--her conversation is possibly more convincing because it is less susceptible of close examination than the written word. But I do not wish to be unjust."

"Then I take it mother is not scholarly?" asked the girl of academic training.

"She is not taken seriously--by the serious," the professor admitted.

"You know, Marvel, there are women who are--who are dearly enthusiastic about the future of the race, who really are not in a position to do advanced thinking about it. Of course there are others of whom I would not venture to make such an a.s.sertion, but in my judgment your mother belongs to the former cla.s.s. You will form your own opinion upon the subject. Do not go to her with any bias in your mind. She {168} is sincere. Her pa.s.sion for humanity is doubtless real, but it seems to me that her erratic spirit has turned it into a channel where it is ineffective. In any case she is an attractive woman. A winter with her should be interesting."

His daughter eyed him gravely. There were depths of reserve in her face and voice. She had felt much, and said little, about this mother whom they were discussing thus dispa.s.sionately. Perhaps it gratified her young dignity that she was able to consider with apparent detachment the woman of whom she had thought long in secret with bitter, blinding tears.

"It is, as you say, a thing to consider," she observed gently. "I may be mistaken in deciding offhand that I will not go. I'll think it over, father dear."

{169}

Professor Charleroy rose, visibly pulling himself together. Crossing the room, he picked up the letter Marvel had dropped and handed it to her.

"I also may be mistaken," he said, "in my first feeling about the matter. Yet I think not. But we will not decide hastily."

When he left the room, Marvel partly closed the door and turned to her stepmother.

"Now, Evelyn, you darling, you know all this is perfectly ridiculous.

Apparently I can't tell father so,--I could see I was hurting him,--but it simply is ridiculous!"