V. V.'s Eyes Part 59

If this was a compact offered, it seemed that it had been sealed in high places. Next morning, which was the morning of September 4th, Miss Masters came smiling to the Garland breakfast-table; and all that day, for the first time in seven weeks, Kern's temperature did not move above 103. On the morning following, it slipped down another half-degree; on the third, the same; and on the fourth morning there existed no reasonable doubt that she was going to get well.

But V. Vivian, the doctor, was not one to forget his mistakes in thanksgiving, merely because the consequences had been lifted from his shoulders. If he had failed once to provide for his little friend, there should never be any trouble on that score again. So he made it all sure and definite now, by the legal-sounding paper he drew up; and Henry Bloom, the undertaker on the next block, who was also a notary public, came in and certified the signature. And he too declined his fee for his trouble, to the wealthy young testator's perceptible annoyance....

That was on September 12th. And next day it was that the morning "Post"

informed all readers that Mrs. B. Thornton Heth and Miss Heth, having just returned from a summer's travel in Europe, had arrived in the city, and were again at their town-house, No. 903 Washington Street.

XXIII

One Summer in Europe, which she never speaks of now; Home again, with what a difference; Novel Questionings, as to what is a Friend, etc.

It was life's waggish way that the project conceived in the obscure dreams of an out-at-elbows young man, and born a foundling upon his money, should have been adopted at sight as the spoiled darling of fashion's ultra-fashionable. Undoubtedly, astute Mr. Dayne had had somewhat to do with this, he who so well understood the connection between social prestige and the obtainment of endowment funds. But whatever the underlying causes and processes, it was plain that the Dabney House Settlement rode the crest of the "exclusive" wave this autumn. And the fact was grasped by Mrs. B. Thornton Heth within twenty-four hours of her home-coming, so admirably was it fitted to her need.

Mrs. Heth had had time enough through the summer, heaven knew, to study out the problem of restoring the family name to its former effulgence, to decide upon the family att.i.tude, or note, for the season ensuing. The note, already firmly struck in her summer's letters to friends,--with which she had taken immense pains, knowing from herself how closely they would be scanned,--was that poor Carlisle, shocked into hysteria by the tragedy, had magnanimously blamed herself where she had no blame beyond, perhaps, youthful thoughtlessness. Thus they were people, and in particular she was a person, severely persecuted for righteousness'

sake, but resolved to bear it n.o.bly.

So much for the note, but a pa.s.sive thing at best. None saw more clearly than Mrs. Heth that a quietly resolute campaign of vindication was necessary, none more clearly that a campaign meant money in considerable sums. If you desired to prove anything, you must have money; stated in another way, you could prove anything provided you spent money enough.

How best to spend large sums in this case?

Musing long upon the family att.i.tude in dull European days and nights, the good lady had gradually developed a complete code of etiquette, as of funerals. Thus she had concluded that to give an elaborate and superbly costly entertainment--ordinarily an unanswerable act of vindication--would under the circ.u.mstances be "in bad taste." A series of small but exclusive dinners would better strike the note on the entertaining side; while, as for more public proof of martyrhood finely borne, she at length decided that frank deeds of selfless charity would be about the proper thing. She had no sooner come in touch again with the home atmosphere than she determined to give ten thousand dollars, perfectly anonymously, to Mr. Dayne's Settlement House Foundation.

Carlisle thought these developments odd enough, and indifferently pictured her mother's dismay, if suddenly informed whose cause it was she was so enthusiastically pitching in to help. For it seemed that she alone knew that the Settlement everybody was talking about was not Mr.

Dayne's at all, but Dr. Vivian's, who wished his gift to be kept a secret. Carlisle said nothing to unsettle her mother, who possibly still thought that Hugo Canning, the gone but not forgotten, was the royal contributor. The girl, indeed, observed with relief that mamma's militant energies were once more in full swing. She had spent six weeks with the little lady when every particle of fight had been flattened out of her, and that was an experience she was not anxious to repeat.

Cally herself was glad to be at home again, though this was a home-coming like none other she had ever known. Four months' use had not robbed memory of its poignancy, and the moment of arrival at the House she found unexpectedly painful. However, there came at once the remeeting with papa, and the first and worst hour of reconnection with the old life again was lubricated with reunion and much talk.

Mr. Heth had been lonely and somewhat depressed during the summer, as his letters had revealed. But he was unaffectedly happy at having his wife and daughter back, and lingered over the breakfast-table till nearly ten o'clock, so much did he have to ask, and to tell, about the summer.

Of that summer Carlisle never afterwards liked to talk. The first weeks of it always stood out in her mind as the most wretched period of her life. All spirit, all pluck, all dignity and self-respect appeared to have been crushed out by the disasters which had befallen her. There was absolutely nothing left on earth to be thankful for, except that the engagement had never been announced.

Through these days Cally hadn't seemed to care that Jack Dalhousie had killed himself, hadn't cared if the constrained tone of Mattie Allen's "steamer-letter"--which said that Mattie was terribly sorry, dear, but was vague as to what--indicated that the Heth glories had undergone a great and permanent eclipse. All her consciousness seemed sucked into the great ragged hole in her life left by Canning's going. Not till now, it seemed, had she realized to what measure her prince of lovers had twined himself into the reaches of her being. To pluck him, at a word, from her heart would have been a difficult task at best, and it was made the more difficult for her in that she did not, at first, put her will into it. For there had lingered in her a sort of stunned incredulity: she could not quite believe that their quarrel had been irretrievable, that Hugo was gone forever. In the four days' waiting and hiding in New York, even after she had put the ocean definitely between them, she multiplied her woes by keeping the small door of hope constantly open against her lover's possible return. And oh, how wretched she was through these days, how sorry, sorry for herself!

And mamma was enormously sorry for herself; and there they were, the worst companions for each other that could possibly have been found in the world. So they had sat down in London, in a modest family-hotel well off the track of tourists and of fashion; for none knew better than mamma when to draw the purse-strings tight, and the European tour, planned as a triumphal progress, had been abased to a refuge and rustication.

The average women in such a situation would, of course, quickly have pooled their sorrows for mutual comfort; but these two were fixedly held apart by their fundamental lack of sympathy with each other, and further by the disciplinary character of mamma's att.i.tude. Whatever she wrote in her letters, Mrs. Heth's personal note was that Carlisle had wilfully brought shame and disgrace upon her ever indulgent parents, and she did not desire that the girl should be diverted for a moment from the contemplation of her errors. In their quiet quarters, they saw practically no one, did nothing but make themselves and each other as miserable as they could. They fairly wallowed in their respective seas of self-pity. And days pa.s.sed when they hardly exchanged a word.

Of course so abject a surrender to the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune could not last indefinitely. Human nature's safety-valve is its extraordinary resilience. Hope springs eternal, etc. Nevertheless, it took a small shock or so to arouse these two women at the mill from their spiritless prostration. One night in early July, Carlisle came suddenly upon the name of Hugo Canning in the foreign tattle column of a London newspaper. She read, with intense fixity of gaze, that Hugo was in Europe: in short, that Hugo was enjoying himself at Trouville, where he was constantly seen in the company of the Honorable Kitty Belden, second daughter of So-and-So, and so forth....

All this time, Carlisle had been taking upon herself most of the blame for the quarrel and break. She had been distracted and unreasonable; she had never explained to Hugo sensibly how it had all happened; it was only natural that he should have misunderstood and misjudged, and in the end lost his temper and said hard things which he did not mean. And he was suffering by it no less than she: oh, be sure of that.... Now, as she sat alone in her bedroom, the newspaper crumpled on the floor beside her, there seemed to fall scales from her eyes, and she saw how bitterly she had deceived herself. Where was now the love pledged to last forever? Six weeks parted from her, and gaily gallivanting at the slipper-toes of happier girls, whom the breath of trouble had not touched.

Not even in this moment did Carlisle tax her once-betrothed with moral wrong in the matter of the "telling," for that whole episode had remained in her mind rather a flare-up of mysterious emotions than a case of religious "conviction of sin" and atonement. Probably Hugo had said and done what he thought was right then. But now it was clear to her, as by a flash, that he had done wrong in quite a different way, that he had committed the deadly sin of love. He had deserted her in the moment of her greatest need of him. At the first pinch his boasted mighty love had broken down; and, beneath all the disguises, it was such a contemptible little pinch at that, only that he was afraid of what people might say about her. Now he stepped the beaches of France, a squire of dames unconcerned. Should she wear her heart in mourning for a light-o'-love and a jilt? She would not. She would not....

Easier said than done, no doubt. Yet Cally's thoughts had at least received a powerful new twist, which is the beginning of reconstruction.

And it was only a day or two later that mamma in her turn received an arousing blow, in that debasing of her by the a.s.sociated Charities which her niece-in-law, Henrietta c.o.o.ney, had mentioned to the Dabney House.

As it happened there came a letter from Hen c.o.o.ney by the same mail that brought mamma's death-dealing one from Mrs. McVey. For Hen, who had never dreamed of corresponding with Cally before, had started up this summer with a long and quite affectionate steamer-letter, and had since written regularly once a week, the newsiest and really the most interesting letters that the Heths got at all. This letter had a private postscript, written on a separate sheet, which said:

Cally, I don't know how you'll take it, but I think I ought to tell you frankly how matters stand. Of course there was plenty of talk, especially at first, and some of it was pretty strong. But whether you like it or not, most of the responsibility for what happened is being put on Aunt Isabel.

Do you remember Mrs. John S. Adkins who was at the Beach the day it happened? She has told everybody it was Aunt Isabel who came downstairs and told her and others the story that they afterwards repeated. And then, besides, it seems to be generally understood that you were the one who wanted to straighten things out when you had no idea it was too late, and everybody whose opinion is worth having knows it's easy enough to slip into a mistake, but takes a lot of s.p.u.n.k to stand up and say so long afterwards. Good-bye again.

Hen.

Carlisle removed this postscript, tore it into small pieces, and put the pieces in the waste-basket under a newspaper. Later in the afternoon she had to go into her mother's bedroom to recover a novel which the older lady had abstracted for her own perusal. She found her mother lying on the bed, an open letter in her hand and on her face the marks of rare tears.

Carlisle, turning away with her book, hesitated. The two women had not spoken a word all that day.

"What's the matter, mamma?" she said constrainedly.

Mrs. Heth, stirring a little on the bed, said, with difficulty: "The a.s.sociated Charities met to elect new officers. I am--omitted from the board." She added, in a voice from which she could not keep the self-pity: "I should naturally--have been president this year."

Her crushed mildness touched Carlisle abruptly. For the first time in all this trouble, perhaps for the first time in her life, she had a considerate and sympathetic thought for her mother. It was mamma, it seemed, upon whom the reprisals of society were to fall most heavily, yet it was she, Cally, who had caused it all. Suppose she had been a good daughter, to begin with; suppose she had even been an obedient daughter, and had kept her own counsel, as mamma had commanded and implored. Ah, how different would have been this ghastly summer!...

She walked over to the bed, quite pale, put her hand on her mother's rumpled hair, and said with some agitation:

"I'm very sorry to have given you all this trouble, mamma."

Mrs. Heth looked up at her, her small eyes winking.

"Oh--I--I'm sure you meant to do what you thought was right. But--oh, Cally!..."

And then she was weeping in her daughter's arms.

Perhaps the stout little lady was ready now for a reconciliation.

Perhaps the strain of silent censoriousness had worn out even her strong will. Perhaps, in some far cranny of her practical heart, there was a spark which secretly admired Cally for her suicidal madness. At any rate, drying her eyes presently, she said:

"How Mary Page will gloat over this.... Well, we can't go on this way, my child. We'll die if we don't have some diversion. Lord knows we'll need all our strength for the fall."

And still later, she suddenly cried: "LET'S GO TO PARIS!"

To Paris they went; and there, occupying more fashionable quarters, began to look about for pleasure. The looking required effort at first and was scantily rewarded; but of course it was not long before the women's spirits responded to the more hopeful atmosphere. Soon they fell in with some lively people from home, the Wintons, who, being a peg or two lower than the Heths in the gay world, made it almost indelicately plain that they were completely unaware of anything's having happened.

To Paris also came J. Forsythe Avery.

And now, in the pa.s.sage of the weeks, the mother and daughter were at home again, with Carlisle finding that memory still had power to stab, and Mrs. Heth stoutly girding herself for the great fight of her life, and almost happy....

If it had taken the violent break to reveal to Cally how deeply Hugo Canning had come into her life, it seemed to take this home-coming to impress upon her how definitely he had departed. There was hardly anything in the house that was not in some way a.s.sociated with him, or with her thought of him. Outdoors it was hardly better: wherever she turned, she found, mementoes of his absence. Strange and sad to think that he and she would ride these familiar streets no more. He had left her alone, to find her feet again in a changed world as best she might.

Where was he on this day and on this, with whom making merry, her false knight who could not love as he could fear the world's opinion?...

It was September, and people were beginning to troop back in numbers from the holiday places of their desire. Cally's first days at home were full of meetings, with those now seen for the first time under strangely altered conditions.

She was not wanting in spirit, but she lacked her mother's splendid pachydermousness. More than mamma, she had shrunk from this first painful plunge, and now that it had come she was receptive to impressions which quite escaped the older lady. Outwardly, indeed, as she perceived with some surprise, the greetings of friends and acquaintances were much as they had always been. But she was at once conscious of a certain new quality in people's looks, a certain hard exploring curiosity, not untouched with a fleeting and furtive air of triumph. This look seemed to confront her, with varying degrees of emphasis, on nearly every face. To her sensitiveness it was as if, beneath cordial speech, everybody was really saying: "Aha!... So you're the young lady who hounded that chap into killing himself and got jilted for your pains. Well, well! Perhaps you won't be quite so high-and-mighty after this...."

Even Carlisle's most intimate friends, try as they doubtless did, seemed unable to help showing that they considered her lot in the world sadly changed. So, indeed, it was. Mattie and Evey could not, for instance, begin naturally by asking, "Cally, did you have a lovely summer?"--when of course they knew very well that she had had a perfectly frightful summer. Mattie came in before eleven o'clock on the first morning, chirping affectionate greetings; but neither then nor later did she manage to convey any real sense of sympathy with Cally, or of understanding what she had been through, or even of wanting to understand. Cally would have liked to justify herself to Mattie, to talk her heart out to her, or to somebody; but Mattie's idea was clearly to keep Cally's mind off it, as you do with the near relatives of the deceased. And was it possible that even Mats's sweet girlishness showed a subtle trace of confirmation of the Frenchman's bitter maxim, that in the misfortunes of our friends there is something not altogether displeasing to us?...