Gradually, however, the girl’s clever story broke down his indignation at her deception, as she told him sobbingly how lonely she was and how she longed for friendship and something real in life; and it took many days and nights of agonizing thought before the plummet of his soul was able to swing clear and tell him that no matter how lonely she was or who was to blame, or how much or when or why, there was one thing true: if Evadne was married, she was not for him, no, not even if she got a divorce. So much inheritance had he from long lines of Puritan ancestors and from the high, fine teachings of his mother. It was a law of God, and it was right. He was not altogether sure just then that he believed in the God who had let all this tragedy come into his life, but he believed in the law, and he must keep it. He had felt himself grow old in those days while he was coming to that inevitable conclusion that if it was not right for them to love one another, then they must not see one another.
For days, he could not talk about it to his mother, and she spent the hours upon her knees, while he went about stern and white; and Evadne did all in her power to make him see that time had changed and modern ways did not accept those puritan laws anymore, which he was holding forth as final and inexorable. Sin! What was sin? There was no such thing! Law! She laughed. Why keep a law that everyone else was breaking? It was all of a piece with his old-fogy notions about drinking wine and having a good time. He was the dearest in all the world of course, but he was narrow. She held out her lily arms from the sheath-like black velvet gown she had assumed and pleaded with him to come with her, come out into the broad, free air of a big life! She was clever. She had caught most of the modern phrases. She knew how to appeal to the finer things in him, and almost she won her point. Almost he wavered for just the fraction of a second and thought, Perhaps she is right—perhaps I am narrow. Then he lifted his eyes and saw his mother standing in the doorway, being shown in by a blundering servant, his fine patrician mother with her sweet, true eyes, and pure, sorrowful face, and he knew. He knew that Evadne was wrong, and his mother—yes, his mother and he were right. There could be nothing but sin in a love that was stolen—a love that transgressed.
He had gone away then and left his mother to talk to the other woman, and something, somewhere in his manhood had kept him away after that. He had written her fully his final word, with so stern a renunciation that even Evadne knew it was unalterable. He had laid down the law that they must not meet again and had then gone away to another part of the country and established himself in business and tried to forget.
That had been two years ago. Long years, he called it when he thought of them by himself. The haggard look of the gray young face had passed away gradually, and the stern lines had softened as his fine mind and strong body and naturally cheerful spirit came back to normal, but there had been a reserve about him that made people think him a year or two older than he really was and made some women when they met him call him “distinguished.” He had passed, in the struggles of his soul, slowly away from the place where he regarded Evadne as a martyr and had come at last to the time when he could look his experience squarely in the face and realize that she had been utterly untrue to all that was fine and womanly and that he was probably saved from a life of sorrow and disappointment. Nevertheless, back in his soul there lingered his pity for her slender beauty, her pretty helplessness. A natural conclusion had come to him that all girls were deceitful; all beautiful women were naturally selfish and untrue. There were no more good, sweet, true girls nowadays as there were when his mother was a girl.
Away from home he drifted out of churchgoing. He immersed himself in business and began to be a brilliant success. He wrote long letters to his mother and enjoyed hers in return, but his letters were not revealing. She sensed his reserves, and when they met she felt his playful gentleness with her was a screen for a bitterness of soul that she hoped and prayed might pass. And it did pass, gradually, until she had almost come to feel that his soul was healed and the tragedy forgotten. More and more she prayed now that someday, when he was ready, he might meet a different kind of girl, one who would make him forget utterly the poor little vampire who had almost ruined his life’s happiness. In fact, the last time she had seen him on her recent trip to Philadelphia he had laughingly told her that she needn’t worry about him anymore. He was utterly heart whole and happy.
But it is a question, whether, if she had been permitted to look in on him this morning as he read Evadne’s letter, she would have felt that his words had been quite true.
He had promised his mother, in those first days after the break with Evadne, that he would not see her nor communicate with her for at least two years. The time was more than past, yet he felt the righteous obligation of his promise still upon him. He knew that he ought not to see Evadne again. He knew that the very sight of her would stir in him the old interest, which he now felt to be of a lower order than the highest of which he was capable. He could see her sitting now, flung back in some bewildering outfit that revealed the delicate, slim lines of her figure, some costly bauble smouldering on the whiteness of her neck that might have graced an Egyptian queen, her hair molded in satin-like folds about her small head, and her slanted eyes half closed, studying him tauntingly as she held her cigarette in her jeweled fingers and considered with what clever personality to bind him next.
The distance of time had shown him that he had been bound, that he had been a fool, and had brought him disillusionment; yet he knew that if he gave it half a chance the enchantment would work again upon him, and he felt contempt for himself that it was so. Yet strangely he found a law within himself that longed again to be enchanted, even while he sneered at the emptiness of it all.
Suppose he should go tonight to meet her—it was tonight. He glanced at the date of the letter to make sure. He could tell almost to a flicker of an eyelash what would happen.
She would meet him as if they had parted but yesterday, and she would ignore all that was passed except that they loved each other. His soul rebelled at the thought of that, for he did not now feel that he loved her any longer. The cleanness of his spirit had put that away. She was not his; she was another’s. She was not fit for a real love, even if there had been no barrier. That had been his maturer thought, especially at times when he remembered her deceit. Yet human nature is a subtle thing. Though he resented her thinking that he had continued to care for her, he feared for himself, lest when he saw her he would allow her to think that it was so. And yet he longed to go and see how it would be. He felt curious to try his dearly bought contentment and see if it would hold. Should he go?
His mother would advise against it, of course. But he was a man now. This was his personal responsibility. Whether he should see her or not. All that about her needing advice in trouble was nonsense, of course. There were plenty of people who could advise her. He could send the old family lawyer to her if necessary. Her plea had been well planned to make him come, because she wished to see if he still cared or if he had forgotten her. But yet it might be beneficial for them both for him to go for a few minutes and show her that there was nothing to all the tragedy that they had thought they were living through.
Well—there was plenty of time to decide what to do. She wasn’t coming till afternoon—he could go, of course, and take her to the Roof Garden for dinner—or perhaps she would better enjoy one of the quieter places—he knew a little Chinese restaurant that was more her style. However, he would thrash it out during the day. It was getting late and he must hurry to the office. But he must read his mother’s letter first, of course. There might be something she wanted done at once. She was staying in the mountains for a little while with her sister who was recovering from a severe illness, and there often was some shopping she wanted him to attend to at once.
He opened the letter, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of Evadne.
The letter was filled with wonderful descriptions of views and people his mother had met, mingled with wise and witty comments on politics and
current events. He skimmed it hastily through to the last paragraph, which read:
I came on a lovely clump of maidenhair ferns yesterday in my walk, and I had the gardener at the hotel take them up and box them carefully for me. I want to send them to my little friend, the interior decorator whom I met on the train a few weeks ago. You remember? But after they were all ready to go and I came to look for the address, I remembered that I left it in the little drawer of the desk in your apartment. I have tried my best to rack my brains for a clue to the street and number and can’t remember a thing except that her name was Cornelia Copley. I remembered that because of the Copley prints of which we are both so fond. So rather than give up the idea or trust to the ferns finding her in that big city with just her name and no street address, I am sending them to you. I want you to slip the box into your car and take a run out that way the very day they come and deliver them for me, please. I like that little girl, and I want her to have these beautiful ferns. They will help her decorate her forlorn little house. I hope you won’t consider this a nuisance, Son. But you never do when I ask a favor, I know. Be sure to do it at once, for the ferns won’t stand it long without water.
A knock came on the door just then, and the young man looked up to see the wife of the janitor, who looked after the apartment and cooked his breakfast, standing in the open door.
“The ‘spressman done brung a box, Mr. Maxwell,” she said. “What you want did with it?”
“Oh, it’s come! Well, tell him to put it into my car. It ought to be out at the door waiting by this time; and just sign for it, please, Hannah. I’m in a hurry this morning. I have an appointment at half past eight.”
Five minutes later, when Maxwell hurried down, he found the big box on the floor of his car, with feathery fronds reaching out to the light and blowing delicately in the breeze.
“Well, I should say she did send a few!” he grumbled to himself. “Trust Mother to do a thing thoroughly! I don’t see when I can possibly manage to deliver these today! I’ll have to get away somehow at lunch time, I suppose. I certainly wish Mother hadn’t chosen this special day to wish one of her pet enthusiasms on me! She’s always hunting out some nice girl! I wish she wouldn’t!”
With that he slammed shut the door, threw in the clutch, and was off, and never thought of those ferns all day long until late in the afternoon, later than his usual hour for going to his dinner, when he climbed wearily into the car again. He had had a hard day, with perplexing problems to solve and a disagreeable visiting head to show all over the Philadelphia branch and keep in good humor. There had not been a minute to get away, not even for a bit of a run in the car at noon, for the visitor had a cold and didn’t care to ride, so they lunched in the downstairs restaurant and went back to work again all the afternoon. The visitor at last was whirled away in the car of another employee to whose home in the suburbs he had been invited to dinner, and Maxwell with a sigh of relief, and feeling somehow very lonesome and tired, was free at last, free to consider the problem of the evening.
He was just backing out of the garage and turning to see that his wheels had cleared the doorway when his eye caught a gleam of green.
“Oh, doggone those fool ferns!” he said under his breath.
“Now I’ll simply have to get them off my hands tonight or they’ll ‘die on me’ as the elevator man said his first wife did. Mother didn’t know what a nuisance this would be. I haven’t a minute to waste on such fool nonsense tonight. I really ought to call up Evadne at once and let her know I’m coming—if I am. I wonder if I am. Well, here goes with the ferns first. It won’t take long if I can find the dump, and it will give me a few minutes’ leisure to decide what I’ll do. I haven’t had a second all day long. I never saw such a day!”
He sent the car shooting forward on the smooth road, climbing the long grade into the sunset.
Chapter 16
The morning had opened most favorably in the Copley home, with everybody in good spirits. At the breakfast table Cornelia had informed the male portion of the family quite casually that there was to be a birthday supper and they must all come promptly home and dress up for it, and Harry had given a grave wink at Louise that almost convulsed her.
Carey was in charming spirits. When he awoke, he had found two new shirts and two pairs of silk socks by his bedside “with love from Cornelia,” and a handkerchief and necktie apiece from each of the children; and he came down with uproarious thanks to greet them. Mr. Copley, thus reminded of the occasion, got up before he had finished his first cup of coffee and went into the living room to the desk. When he came back, he carried a check in his hand made out to Carey.
“There, Son, that’s from Mother and me for that new suit you need,” he said in a voice warm with feeling. “I meant get around to it last night, but somehow the date slipped me.”
And Carey, taken unawares, was almost embarrassed, rising with the check in his hand and his color coming and going like a girl.
“Why, Dad! Really, Dad! You ought not to do this now. I’m an old chump that I haven’t earned one long ago. Take it back, Dad. You’ll need it for Mother. I’ll take the thought just the same.”
“No, that’s all right, Son. You earn the next one,” said the father with a touch on his son’s arm almost like a caress.
And so the little party separated with joy on every face and went their separate ways. Carey was still working at the garage. He had been secretly saving up to buy a secondhand automobile that he knew was for sale, excusing the desire by saying it would be good for his mother to ride in when she came home. But now he suddenly saw that his ambition was selfish and that what he must first do was to get a job where he could help his father and pay his board at home. To that end, he resolved to hand twenty-five dollars to Cornelia that very night, if he could get it out of Pat, and start the new year aright, telling her it was board money. He promised most solemnly to be at home in time to “fix up” before supper, and Cornelia went about the day’s preparations with a light heart. There seemed a reasonable amount of hope that the young man himself would be likely to be on hand at his own birthday party. Having secured the two most likely sources of other engagements, Clytie and Brand, there didn’t seem much else that could happen to upset her plans.
The birthday cake had been a regular angel the way it rose and stayed risen when it got there, and blushed a lovely biscuit brown, and took its icing smoothly. It was even now waiting out of sight in the bread box ready for its candles, which Louise was to add when she returned from school at noon. Both children were coming home at noon, and Harry was not going to the grocery that day.
Cornelia had put the whole house in apple-pie order the day before, made the cake and the gelatin salad, and had done all the marketing. The day looked easy ahead of her. She set the biscuits and tucked them up in a warm corner, washed the spinach in many waters and left it in its last cold bath getting crisp, with the lettuce in a stone jar doing the same thing. Then she sat down with a silver spoon, a sharp knife, a big yellow bowl, and a basket of fruit to prepare the fruit cocktail.
While she was doing this, Grace Kendall ran in with her arms full of lovely roses that had been sent to her mother that morning. She said her mother wished to share them with the Copleys. Grace put the flowers into water and sat down with another spoon to help. Before long the delicious pink and gold mixture was put away on the ice all ready for night. Grace helped scrape the potatoes and dust the living room then went home promising to be on hand early and help entertain the strange guests. Somehow Grace seemed to understand all about both of them and to be tremendously interested in the whole affair. Cornelia went about her pretty living room putting the last touches everywhere, setting a blue bowl of roses at just the right angle on the table, putting an especially lovely half-open bud in a tall, slender glass on the bookcase, pushing a chair into place, and turning a magazine and a book into inviting positions. She kept thinking how glad she was for this new girlfriend, this girl who, though a
little younger, yet seemed to understand so well. She sighed as she touched the roses lovingly and recognized a fleeting impossible wish that her brother might have chosen to be interested in a girl like this one instead of the gum-chewing, ill-bred child with whom he seemed to be pairing off.
The children were so excited when they arrived at noon that she had difficulty in persuading them to eat any lunch. They ate the sandwiches and drank the milk she had set out for them in one swallow, it seemed to her, and then they flew to the tasks that had been assigned to them. Harry brought in armfuls of wood and stowed them neatly away in the big locker by the fireside and built up a beautifully scientific fire ready to light. It was a lovely, warm spring day, but with all the windows open in the evening, a good fire in the fireplace would be quite acceptable and altogether too charming to omit. He swept the hearth and then went out and scrubbed the front steps, swept the front walk, and mowed the little patch of lawn, trimming the edges till it looked like a well-groomed park.
Meantime Louise and her sister set the table with the air of one who decks a bride. It was so nice to use the table full length; to spread the beautifully laundered cloth, Mother’s only “best” cloth that was left, treasured from the years of plenty; to set the best china and glass in place; and to make the most of the small stock of nicely polished silver. And then the crystal bowl of roses in the center of each end made such a difference in the glory of the whole thing!
“Wasn’t it dear of her to send them!” exclaimed Louise, pulling a great luscious bud over to droop at just the right angle.
Of course the crowning glory of all was the big angel cake with its gleaming white frosting set in the middle of a wreath of roses, with the twenty-one candles in a little pink circle cleverly fastened to the cardboard circle concealed by the rose foliage. It certainly was a pretty thing. The little pink paper baskets filled with delicately browned and salted nuts were placed at each place by the exalted Louise, whose eyes shone as if she were doing the honors at some great festival. And the little birds with their name cards tilted on the rims of the glasses delightfully. The little girl stood back with clasped hands and surveyed it all.