IX
Face to Face.
After a day of close and intense September heat, it had rained duringthe night. And now the morning had followed chill and crisp, yet withpossibilities of a genial sunshine breaking through the mist that hadrisen at dawn from the great sluggish river and spread itself throughthe mazes of the city.
The change was one to send invigorating thrills through the blood, andto quicken the step; to make one like the push and jostle of themultitude that thronged the streets; to make one in love withintoxicating life, and impatient with the grudging dispensation thathad given to mankind no wings wherewith to fly.
But with no reacting warmth in his heart, the change had only madeHosmer shiver and draw his coat closer about his chest, as he pushedhis way through the hurrying crowd.
The St. Louis Exposition was in progress with all its many allurementsthat had been heralded for months through the journals of the State.
Hence, the unusual press of people on the streets this brightSeptember morning. Home people, whose air of ownership to thesurroundings classified them at once, moving unobservantly about theiraffairs. Women and children from the near and rich country towns, infor the Exposition and their fall shopping; wearing gowns of ultrafashionable tendencies; leaving in their toilets nothing toexpediency; taking no chances of so much as a ribbon or a loop set indisaccordance with the book.
There were whole families from across the bridge, hurrying towards theExposition. Fathers and mothers, babies and grandmothers, with basketsof lunch and bundles of provisional necessities, in for the day.
Nothing would escape their observation nor elude their criticism, fromthe creations in color lining the walls of the art gallery, to themost intricate mechanism of inventive genius in the basement. Allwould pass inspection, with drawing of comparison between the present,the past year and the "year before," likely in a nasal drawl with theR's brought sharply out, leaving no doubt as to their utterance.
The newly married couple walking serenely through the crowd, young,smiling, up-country, hand-in-hand; well pleased with themselves, withtheir new attire and newer jewelry, would likely have answeredHosmer's "beg pardon" with amiability if he had knocked them down. Buthe had only thrust them rather violently to one side in his eagernessto board the cable car that was dashing by, with no seemingwillingness to stay its mad flight. He still possessed the agility inhis unpracticed limbs to swing himself on the grip, where he took afront seat, well buttoned up as to top-coat, and glad of the bodilyrest that his half hour's ride would bring him.
The locality in which he descended presented some noticeable changessince he had last been there. Formerly, it had been rather a quietstreet, with a leisurely horse car depositing its passengers twoblocks away to the north from it; awaking somewhat of afternoons whenhordes of children held possession. But now the cable had come todisturb its long repose, adding in the office, nothing to itsattractiveness.
There was the drug store still at the corner, with the sameproprietor, tilted back in his chair as of old, and as of old readinghis newspaper with only the change which a newly acquired pair ofspectacles gave to his appearance. The "drug store boy" had unfoldedinto manhood, plainly indicated by the mustache that in addingadornment and dignity to his person, had lifted him above the menialoffice of window washing. A task relegated to a mustacheless urchinwith a leaning towards the surreptitious abstraction of caramels andchewing gum in the intervals of such manual engagements as did notrequire the co-operation of a strategic mind.
Where formerly had been the vacant lot "across the street," the Sundayafternoon elysium of the youthful base ball fiend from Biddle Street,now stood a row of brand new pressed-brick "flats." Marvelous musthave been the architectural ingenuity which had contrived to unite somany dwellings into so small a space. Before each spread a length ofclosely clipped grass plot, and every miniature front door wore itsfantastic window furnishing; each set of decorations having seeminglyfired the next with efforts of surpassing elaboration.
The house at which Hosmer rang--a plain two-storied red brick,standing close to the street--was very old-fashioned in face of itsmodern opposite neighbors, and the recently metamorphosed dwellingnext door, that with added porches and appendages to tax man's facultyof conjecture, was no longer recognizable for what it had been. Eventhe bell which he pulled was old-fashioned and its tingle might beheard throughout the house long after the servant had opened the door,if she were only reasonably alert to the summons. Its reverberationswere but dying away when Hosmer asked if Mrs. Larimore were in. Mrs.Larimore was in; an admission which seemed to hold in reserve adefiant "And what if she is, sir."
Hosmer was relieved to find the little parlor into which he wasushered, with its adjoining dining-room, much changed. The carpetswhich he and Fanny had gone out together to buy during the early daysof their housekeeping, were replaced by rugs that lay upon the bare,well polished floors. The wall paper was different; so were thehangings. The furniture had been newly re-covered. Only the smallhousehold gods were as of old: things--trifles--that had never muchoccupied or impressed him, and that now, amid their alteredsurroundings stirred no sentiment in him of either pleased or sadremembrance.
It had not been his wish to take his wife unawares, and he hadpreviously written her of his intended coming, yet without giving hera clue for the reason of it.
There was an element of the bull-dog in Hosmer. Having made up hismind, he indulged in no regrets, in no nursing of if's and and's, butstood like a brave soldier to his post, not a post of danger,true--but one well supplied with discomfiting possibilities.
And what had Homeyer said of it? He had railed of course as usual, atthe submission of a human destiny to the exacting and ignorant rule ofwhat he termed moral conventionalities. He had startled and angeredHosmer with his denunciation of Therese's sophistical guidance.Rather--he proposed--let Hosmer and Therese marry, and if Fanny wereto be redeemed--though he pooh-poohed the notion as untenable withcertain views of what he called the rights to existence: the existenceof wrongs--sorrows--diseases--death--let them all go to make up theconglomerate whole--and let the individual man hold on to hispersonality. But if she must be redeemed--granting this point to theirlittleness, let the redemption come by different ways than those ofsacrifice: let it be an outcome from the capability of their unitedhappiness.
Hosmer did not listen to his friend Homeyer. Love was his god now, andTherese was Love's prophet.
So he was sitting in this little parlor waiting for Fanny to come.
She came after an interval that had been given over to the indulgenceof a little feminine nervousness. Through the open doors Hosmer couldhear her coming down the back stairs; could hear that she haltedmid-way. Then she passed through the dining-room, and he arose andwent to meet her, holding out his hand, which she was not at onceready to accept, being flustered and unprepared for his manner inwhichever way it might direct itself.
They sat opposite each other and remained for a while silent; he withastonishment at sight of the "merry blue eyes" faded and sunken intodeep, dark round sockets; at the net-work of little lines all tracedabout the mouth and eyes, and spreading over the once rounded cheeksthat were now hollow and evidently pale or sallow, beneath a layer ofrouge that had been laid on with an unsparing hand. Yet was she stillpretty, or pleasing, especially to a strong nature that would find anappeal in the pathetic weakness of her face. There was no guessing atwhat her figure might be, it was disguised under a very fashionabledress, and a worsted shawl covered her shoulders, which occasionallyquivered as with an inward chill. She spoke first, twisting the end ofthis shawl.
"What did you come for, David? why did you come now?" with peevishresistance to the disturbance of his coming.
"I know I have come without warrant," he said, answering herimplication. "I have been led to see--no matter how--that I mademistakes in the past, and what I want to do now is to right them, ifyou will let me."
This was very unexpected to her, and it startl
ed her, but neither withpleasure nor pain; only with an uneasiness which showed itself in herface.
"Have you been ill?" he asked suddenly as the details of change in herappearance commenced to unfold themselves to him.
"Oh no, not since last winter, when I had pneumonia so bad. Theythought I was going to die. Dr. Franklin said I would 'a died if BelleWorthington hadn't 'a took such good care of me. But I don't see whatyou mean coming now. It'll be the same thing over again: I don't seewhat's the use, David."
"We won't talk about the use, Fanny. I want to take care of you forthe rest of your life--or mine--as I promised to do ten years ago; andI want you to let me do it."
"It would be the same thing over again," she reiterated, helplessly.
"It will not be the same," he answered positively. "I will not be thesame, and that will make all the difference needful."
"I don't see what you want to do it for, David. Why we'd haf to getmarried over again and all that, wouldn't we?"
"Certainly," he answered with a faint smile. "I'm living in the Southnow, in Louisiana, managing a sawmill down there."
"Oh, I don't like the South. I went down to Memphis, let's see, it waslast spring, with Belle and Lou Dawson, after I'd been sick; and Idon't see how a person can live down there."
"You would like the place where I'm living. It's a fine largeplantation, and the lady who owns it would be the best of friends toyou. She knew why I was coming, and told me to say she would help tomake your life a happy one if she could."
"It's her told you to come," she replied in quick resentment. "I don'tsee what business it is of hers."
Fanny Larimore's strength of determination was not one to hold againstHosmer's will set to a purpose, during the hour or more that theytalked, he proposing, she finally acquiescing. And when he left her,it was with a gathering peace in her heart to feel that his nearnesswas something that would belong to her again; but differently as heassured her. And she believed him, knowing that he would stand to hispromise.
Her life was sometimes very blank in the intervals of streetperambulations and matinees and reading of morbid literature. Thatelation which she had felt over her marriage with Hosmer ten yearsbefore, had soon died away, together with her weak love for him, whenshe began to dread him and defy him. But now that he said he was readyto take care of her and be good to her, she felt great comfort in herknowledge of his honesty.