and Mrs. Allison, and the rest. He hopes that if I go away, I may
quiet down and come to my senses. We have a good excuse. I have to
think of my health just now---"
She stopped, and looked away from my eyes. I saw the colour
spreading in a slow wave over her cheeks; it was like those tints of
early dawn that are so ravishing to the souls of poets. "In four or
five months from now---" And she stopped again.
I put my big hand gently over her small one. "I have three children
of my own," I said.
"So," she went on, "it won't seem so unreasonable. Some people know,
and the rest will guess, and there won't be any talk--I mean, such
as there would be if it was rumoured that Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver
had got interested in Socialism, and refused to spend her husband's
money."
"I understand," I replied. "It's quite the most sensible thing, and
I'm glad you've found a way out. I shall miss you, of course, but we
can write each other long letters. Where are you going?"
"I'm not absolutely sure. Douglas suggests a cruise in the West
Indies, but I think I should rather be settled in one place. He has
a lovely house in the mountains of North Carolina, and wants me to
go there; but it's a show-place, with rich homes all round, and I
know I'd soon be in a social whirl. I thought of the camp in the
Adirondacks. It would be glorious to see the real woods in winter;
but I lose my nerve when I think of the cold--I was brought up in a
warm place."
"A 'camp' sounds rather primitive for one in your condition," I
suggested.
"That's because you haven't been there. In reality it's a big house,
with twenty-five rooms, and steam-heat and electric lights, and half
a dozen men to take care of it when it's empty--as it has been for
several years."
I smiled--for I could read her thought. "Are you going to be unhappy
because you can't occupy all your husband's homes?"
"There's one other I prefer," she continued, unwilling to be made to
smile. "They call it a 'fishing lodge,' and it's down in the Florida
Keys. They're putting a railroad through there, but meantime you can
only get to it by a launch. From the pictures, it's the most
heavenly spot imaginable. Fancy running about those wonderful green
waters in a motor-boat!"
"It sounds quite alluring," I replied. "But isn't it remote for
you?"
"We're not so very far from Key West; and my husband means to have a
physician with us in any case. The advantage of being in a small
place is that we couldn't entertain if we wanted to. I can have my
Aunt Varina come to stay with me, a dear, sweet soul who loves me
devotedly; and then if I find I have to have some new ideas, perhaps
you can come---"
"I don't think your husband would favour that," I said.
She put her hand out to me in a quick gesture. "I don't mean to give
up our friendship! I want you to understand, I intend to go on
studying and growing. I am doing what he asked me--it's right that I
should think of his wishes, and of the health of my child. But the
child will be growing up, and sooner or later my husband must grant
me the right to think, to have a life of my own. You must stand by
me and help me, whatever happens."
I gave her my hand on that, and so we parted--for some time, as it
proved. I went up to Albany once more, in a last futile effort to
save our precious bill; and while I was there I got a note from her,
saying that she was leaving for the Florida Keys.
BOOK II
SYLVIA AS MOTHER
For three months after this I had nothing but letters from Sylvia.
She proved to be an excellent letter-writer, full of verve and
colour. I would not say that she poured out her soul to me, but she
gave me glimpses of her states of mind, and the progress of her
domestic drama.
First, she described the place to which she had come; a ravishing
spot, where any woman ought to be happy. It was a little island,
fringed with a border of cocoanut-palms, which rustled and
whispered day and night in the breeze. It was covered with tropical
foliage, and there was a long, rambling bungalow, with screened
"galleries," and a beach of hard white sand in front. The water was
blue, dazzling with sunshine, and dotted with distant green islands;
all of it, air, water, and islands, were warm. "I don't realize till
I get here," she said, "I am never really happy in the North. I wrap
myself against the assaults of a cruel enemy. But here I am at home;
I cast off my furs, I stretch out my arms, I bloom. I believe I
shall quite cease to think for a while--I shall forget all storms
and troubles, and bask on the sand like a lizard.
"And the water! Mary, you cannot imagine such water; why should it
be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a
little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for
hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and
all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have
caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it
really is quite thrilling to feel the monstrous creature struggling
with you--though, of course, my arms soon gave out, and I had to
turn him over to my husband. This is one of the famous
fishing-grounds of the world, and I am glad of that, because it will
keep the men happy while I enjoy the sunshine.
"I have discovered a fascinating diversion," she wrote, in a second
letter. "I make them take me in the launch to one of the loneliest
of the keys; they go off to fish, and I have the whole day to
myself, and am as happy as a child on a picnic! I roam the beach, I
take off my shoes and stockings--there are no newspaper reporters
snapping pictures. I dare not go far in, for there are huge black
creatures with dangerous stinging tails; they rush away in a cloud
of sand when I approach, but the thought of stepping upon one by
accident is terrifying. However, I let the little wavelets wash
round my toes, and I try to grab little fish, and I pick up lovely
shells; and then I go on, and I see a huge turtle waddling to the
water, and I dash up, and would stop him if I dared, and then I find
his eggs--such an adventure!
"I am the prey of strange appetites and cravings. I have a delicious
luncheon with me, but suddenly the one thing in the world I want to
eat is turtle-eggs. I have no matches with me, and I do not know how
to build a fire like the Indians, so I have to hide the eggs back in
the sand until to-morrow. I hope the turtle does not move them--and
that I have not lost my craving in the meantime!
"Then I go exploring inland. These islands were once the haunts of
pirates, so I may imagine all sorts of romantic things. What I find
are lemon-trees. I do not know if they are wild, or if the key was
once cultivated; the lemons are huge in size, and nearly all skin,
but the flavour is delicious. Turtle-eggs with wild lemon-juice! And
then I go o
n and come to a mangrove-swamp--dark and forbidding, a
grisly place; you imagine the trees are in torment, with limbs and
roots tangled like writhing serpents. I tiptoe in a little way, and
then get frightened, and run back to the beach.
"I see on the sand a mysterious little yellow creature, running like
the wind; I make a dash, and get between him and his hole; and so he
stands, crouching on guard, staring at me, and I at him. He is some
sort of crab, but he stands on two legs like a caricature of a man;
he has two big weapons upraised for battle, and staring black eyes
stuck out on long tubes. He is an uncanny thing to look at; but then
suddenly the idea comes, How do I seem to him? I realize that he is
alive; a tiny mite of hunger for life, of fear and resolution. I
think, How lonely he must be! And I want to tell him that I love
him, and would not hurt him for the world; but I have no way to make
him understand me, and all I can do is to go away and leave him. I
go, thinking what a strange place the world is, with so many living
things, each shut away apart by himself, unable to understand the
others or make the others understand him. This is what is called
philosophy, is it not? Tell me some books where these things are
explained....
"I am reading all you sent me. When I grew tired of exploring the
key, I lay down in the shade of a palm-tree, and read--guess what?
'Number Five John Street'! So all this loveliness vanished, and I
was back in the world's nightmare. An extraordinary book! I decided
that it would be good for my husband, so I read him a few
paragraphs; but I found that it only irritated him. He wants me to
rest, he says--he can't see why I've come away to the Florida Keys
to read about the slums of London.
"My hope of gradually influencing his mind has led to a rather
appalling discovery--that he has the same intention as regards me!
He too has brought a selection of books, and reads to me a few pages
every day, and explains what they mean. He calls _this_ resting! I
am no match for him, of course--I never realized more keenly the
worthlessness of my education. But I see in a general way where his
arguments tend--that life is something that has grown, and is not in
the power of men to change; but even if he could convince me of
this, I should not find it a source of joy. I have a feeling always
that if you were here, you would know something to answer.
"The truth is that I am so pained by the conflict between us that I
cannot argue at all. I find myself wondering what our marriage would
have been like if we had discovered that we had the same ideas and
interests. There are days and nights at a time when I tell myself
that I ought to believe what my husband believes, that I ought never
have allowed myself to think of anything else. But that really won't
do as a life-programme; I tried it years ago with my dear mother and
father. Did I ever tell you that my mother is firmly convinced in
her heart that I am to suffer eternally in a real hell of fire
because I do not believe certain things about the Bible? She still
has visions of it--though not so bad since she turned me over to a
husband!
"Now it is my husband who is worried about my ideas. He is reading a
book by Burke, a well-known old writer. The book deals with English
history, which I don't know much about, but I see that it resents
modern changes, and the whole spirit of change. And Mary, why can't
I feel that way? I really ought to love those old and stately
things, I ought to be reverent to the past; I was brought up that
way. Sometimes I tremble when I realize how very flippant and
cynical I am. I seem to see the wrong side of everything, so that I
couldn't believe in it if I wanted to!"
2. Her letters were full of the wonders of Nature about her. There
was a snow-white egret who made his home upon her island; she
watched his fishing operations, and meant to find his nest, so as to
watch his young. The men made a trip into the Everglades, and
brought back wonder-tales of flocks of flamingoes making scarlet
clouds in the sky, huge colonies of birds' nests crowded like a
city. They had brought home a young one, which screamed all day to
be stuffed with fish.
A cousin of Sylvia's, Harley Chilton, had come to visit her. He had
taken van Tuiver on hunting-trips during the latter's courtship
days, and now was a good fishing-companion. He was not allowed to
discover the state of affairs between Sylvia and her husband, but he
saw his cousin reading serious books, and his contribution to the
problem was to tell her that she would get wrinkles in her face, and
that even her feet would grow big, like those of the ladies in New
England.
Also, there was the young physician who kept watch over Sylvia's
health; a dapper little man with pink and white complexion, and a
brown moustache from which he could not keep his fingers. He had a
bungalow to himself, but sometimes he went along on the
launch-trips, and Sylvia thought she observed wrinkles of amusement
round his eyes whenever she differed from her husband on the subject
of Burke. She suspected this young man of not telling all his ideas
to his multi-millionaire patients, and she was entertained by the
prospect of probing him.
Then came Mrs. Varina Tuis; who since the tragic cutting of her own
domestic knot, had given her life to the service of the happier
members of the Castleman line. She was now to be companion and
counsellor to Sylvia; and on the very day of her arrival she
discovered the chasm that was yawning in her niece's life.
"It's wonderful," wrote Sylvia, "the intuition of the Castleman
women. We were in the launch, passing one of the viaducts of the new
railroad, and Aunt Varina exclaimed, 'What a wonderful piece of
work!' 'Yes,' put in my husband, 'but don't let Sylvia hear you say
it.' 'Why not?' she asked; and he replied, 'She'll tell you how many
hours a day the poor Dagoes have to work.' That was all; but I saw
Aunt Varina give a quick glance at me, and I saw that she was not
fooled by my efforts to make conversation. It was rather horrid of
Douglas, for he knows that I love these old people, and do not want
them to know about my trouble. But it is characteristic of him--when
he is annoyed he seldom tries to spare others.
"As soon as we were alone, Aunt Varina began, 'Sylvia, my dear, what
does it mean? What have you done to worry your husband?'
"You would be entertained if I could remember the conversation. I
tried to dodge the trouble by answering off-hand, 'Douglas had eaten
too many turtle-eggs for luncheon '--this being a man-like thing,
that any dear old lady would understand. But she was too shrewd. I
had to explain to her that I was learning to think, and this sent
her into a perfect panic.
"'You actually mean, my child, that you are thinking about subjects
to which your husband objects, and you refuse to stop when he asks
you to
? Surely you must know that he has some good reason for
objecting.'
"'I suppose so,' I said, 'but he has not made that reason clear to
me; and certainly I have a right--'
"She would not hear any more than that. 'Right, Sylvia? Right? Are
you claiming the right to drive your husband from you?'
"'But surely I can't regulate all my thinking by the fear of driving
my husband from me!'
"'Sylvia, you take my breath away. Where did you get such ideas?'
"'But answer me, Aunt Varina--can I?'
"'What thinking is as important to a woman as thinking how to please
a good, kind husband? What would become of her family if she no
longer tried to do this?'
"So you see, we opened up a large subject. I know you consider me a
backward person, and you may be interested to learn that there are
some to whom I seem a terrifying rebel. Picture poor Aunt Varina,
her old face full of concern, repeating over and over, 'My child, my
child, I hope I have come in time! Don't scorn the advice of a woman
who has paid bitterly for her mistakes. You have a good husband, a
man who loves you devotedly; you are one of the most fortunate of
women--now do not throw your happiness away!'
"'Aunt Varina,' I said (I forget if I ever told you that her husband
gambled and drank, and finally committed suicide) 'Aunt Varina, do
you really believe that every man is so anxious to get away from his
wife that it must take her whole stock of energy, her skill in
diplomacy, to keep him?'
"'Sylvia,' she answered, "you put things so strangely, you use such
horribly crude language, I don't know how to talk to you!' (That
must be your fault, Mary. I never heard such a charge before.) 'I
can only tell you this--that the wife who permits herself to think
about other things than her duty to her husband and her children is
taking a frightful risk. She is playing with fire, Sylvia--she will
realize too late what it means to set aside the wisdom of her sex,
the experience of other women for ages and ages!'
"So there you are, Mary! I am studying another unwritten book, the
Maxims of Aunt Varina!
"She has found the remedy for my troubles, the cure for my disease
of thought--I am to sew! I tell her that I have more clothes than I
can wear in a dozen seasons, and she answers, in an awesome voice,
'There is the little stranger!' When I point out that the little
stranger will be expected to have a 'layette' costing many thousands
of dollars, she replies, 'They will surely permit him to wear some
of the things his mother's hands have made.' So, behold me, seated
on the gallery, learning fancy stitches--and with Kautsky on the
Social Revolution hidden away in the bottom of my sewing-bag!"
3. The weeks passed. The legislature at Albany adjourned, without
regard to our wishes; and so, like the patient spider whose web is
destroyed, we set to work upon a new one. So much money must be
raised, so many articles must be written, so many speeches
delivered, so many people seized upon and harried and wrought to a
state of mind where they were dangerous to the future career of
legislators. Such is the process of social reform under the private
property r?gime; a process which the pure and simple reformers
imagine we shall tolerate for ever--God save us!
Sylvia asked me for the news, and I told it to her--how we had
failed, and what we had to do next. So pretty soon there came by
registered mail a little box, in which I found a diamond ring. "I
cannot ask him for money just now," she explained, "but here is
something that has been mine from girlhood. It cost about four
hundred dollars--this for your guidance in selling it. Not a day
passes that I do not see many times that much wasted; so take it for
the cause." Queen Isabella and her jewels!
In this letter she told me of a talk she had had with her husband on