Mary Marie
Chapter 9
Which is the Test
ANDERSONVILLE. Twelve years later.
Twelve years — yes. And I'm twenty-eight years old. Pretty old, little Mary
Marie of the long ago would think. And, well, perhaps to-day I feel just as old
as she would put it.
I came up into the attic this morning to pack away some things I shall no
longer need, now that I am going to leave Jerry. (Jerry is my husband.) And in
the bottom of my little trunk I found this manuscript. I had forgotten that such
a thing existed; but with its laboriously written pages before me, it all came
back to me; and I began to read; here a sentence; there a paragraph; somewhere
else a page. Then, with a little half laugh and half sob, I carried it to an old
rocking-chair by the cobwebby dormer window, and settled myself to read it
straight through.
And I have read it.
Poor little Mary Marie! Dear little Mary Marie! To meet you like this, to
share with you your joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs, of those years long
ago, is like sitting hand in hand on a sofa with a childhood's friend, each
listening to an eager "And do you remember?" falling constantly from delighted
lips that cannot seem to talk half fast enough.
But you have taught me much, little Mary Marie. I understand — oh, I
understand so many things so much better, now, since reading this little story
in your round childish hand. You see, I had almost forgotten that I was a Mary
and a Marie — Jerry calls me Mollie — and I had wondered what were those
contending forces within me. I know now. It is the Mary and the Marie trying to
settle their old, old quarrel.
It was almost dark when I had finished the manuscript. The far corners of the
attic were peopled with fantastic shadows, and the spiders in the window were
swaying, lazy and fullstomached, in the midst of the day's spoils of gruesome
wings and legs. I got up slowly, stiffly, shivering a little. I felt suddenly
old and worn and ineffably weary. It is a long, long journey back to our
childhood — sometimes, even though one may be only twenty-eight.
I looked down at the last page of the manuscript. It was written on the top
sheet of a still thick pad of paper, and my fingers fairly tingled suddenly, to
go on and cover those unused white sheets — tell what happened next — tell the
rest of the story; not for the sake of the story — but for my sake. It might
help me. It might make things clearer. It might help to justify myself in my own
eyes. Not that I have any doubts, of course (about leaving Jerry, I mean), but
that when I saw it in black and white I could be even more convinced that I was
doing what was best for him and best for me.
So I brought the manuscript down to my own room, and this evening I have
commenced to write. I can't finish it to-night, of course. But I have to-morrow,
and still to-morrow. (I have so many to-morrows now! And what do they all amount
to?) And so I'll just keep writing, as I have time, till I bring it to the end.
I'm sorry that it must be so sad and sorry an end. But there 's no other way,
of course. There can be but one ending, as I can see. I'm sorry. Mother 'll be
sorry, too. She doesn't know yet. I hate to tell her. Nobody knows — not even
Jerry himself — yet. They all think I'm just making a visit to Mother — and I
am — till I write that letter to Jerry. And then —
I believe now that I'll wait till I've finished writing this. I'll feel
better then. My mind will be clearer. I'll know more what to say. Just the
effort of writing it down —
Of course, if Jerry and I hadn't —
But this is no way to begin. Like the little Mary Marie of long ago I am in
danger of starting my dinner with ice-cream instead of soup! And so I must begin
where I left off, of course. And that was at the wedding.
I remember that wedding as if it were yesterday. I can see now, with Mary
Marie's manuscript before me, why it made so great an impression upon me. It was
a very quiet wedding, of course — just the members of the family present. But I
shall never forget the fine, sweet loveliness of Mother's face, nor the splendid
strength and tenderness of Father's. And the way he drew her into his arms and
kissed her, after it was all over — well, I remember distinctly that even Aunt
Hattie choked up and had to turn her back to wipe her eyes.
They went away at once, first to New York for a day or two, then to
Andersonville, to prepare for the real wedding trip to the other side of the
world. I stayed in Boston at school; and because nothing of consequence happened
all those weeks and months is the reason, I suspect, why the manuscript got
tossed into the bottom of my little trunk and stayed there.
In the spring, when Father and Mother returned, and we all went back to
Andersonville, there followed another long period of just happy girlhood, and I
suspect I was too satisfied and happy to think of writing. After all, I've
noticed it's when we're sad or troubled over something that we have that
tingling to cover perfectly good white paper with "confessions" and "stories of
my life." As witness right now what I'm doing.
And so it's not surprising, perhaps, that Mary Marie's manuscript still lay
forgotten in the little old trunk after it was taken up to the attic. Mary Marie
was happy.
And it was happy — that girlhood of mine; after we came back to
Andersonville. I can see now, as I look back at it, that Father and Mother were
doing everything in their power to blot out of my memory those unhappy years of
my childhood. For that matter, they were also doing everything in their power to
blot out of their own memories those same unhappy years. To me, as I look back
at it, it seems that they must have succeeded wonderfully. They were very happy,
I believe — Father and Mother.
Oh, it was not always easy — even I could see that. It took a lot of
adjusting — a lot of rubbing off of square corners to keep the daily life
running smoothly. But when two persons are determined that it shall run smoothly
— when each is steadfastly looking to the other's happiness, not at his own —
why, things just can't help smoothing out then. But it takes them both. One
can't do it alone. Now, if Jerry would only —
But it isn't time to speak of Jerry yet.
I'll go back to my girlhood.
It was a trying period — it must have been for Father and Mother, in spite
of their great love for me, and their efforts to create for me a happiness that
would erase the past from my mind. I realize it now. For, after all, I was just
a girl — a young girl, like other girls; high-strung, nervous, thoughtless,
full of my whims and fancies; and, in addition, with enough of my mother and
enough of my father within me to make me veritably a cross-current and a
contradiction, as I had said that I was in the opening sentence of my childish
autobiography.
I had just passed my sixteenth birthday when we all came back to live in
Andersonville. For the first few months I suspect that just the glory and the
wonder and joy of living in the old home, with Father and Mother happy together,
was enough to fill all my thoughts. Then, as school began in the fall, I came
down to normal living again, and became a girl — just a growing girl in her
teens.
How patient Mother was, and Father, too! I can see now how gently and
tactfully they helped me over the stones and stumbling-blocks that strew the
pathway of every sixteen-year-old girl who thinks, because she has turned down
her dresses and turned up her hair, that she is grown up, and can do and think
and talk as she pleases.
I well remember how hurt and grieved and superior I was at Mother's
insistence upon more frequent rubbers and warm coats, and fewer ice-cream sodas
and chocolate bonbons. Why, surely I was old enough now to take care of myself!
Wasn't I ever to be allowed to have my own opinions and exercise my own
judgment? It seemed not! Thus spoke superior sixteen.
As for clothes! — I remember distinctly the dreary November rainstorm of the
morning I reproachfully accused Mother of wanting to make me back into a stupid
little Mary, just because she so uncompromisingly disapproved of the beaded
chains and bangles and jeweled combs and spangled party dresses that "every girl
in school" was wearing. Why, the idea! Did she want me to dress like a little
frump of a country girl? It seems she did.
Poor mother! Dear mother! I wonder how she kept her patience at all. But she
kept it. I remember that distinctly, too.
It was that winter that I went through the morbid period. Like our
childhood's measles and whooping cough, it seems to come to most of us — us
women children. I wonder why? Certainly it came to me. True to type I cried by
the hour over fancied slights from my schoolmates, and brooded days at a time
because Father or Mother "didn't understand." I questioned everything the earth
beneath and the heavens above; and in my dark despair over an averted glance
from my most intimate friend, I meditated on whether life was, or was not, worth
the living, with a preponderance toward the latter.
Being plunged into a state of settled gloom, I then became acutely anxious as
to my soul's salvation, and feverishly pursued every ism and ology that caught
my roving eye's attention, until in one short month I had become, in despairing
rotation, an incipient agnostic, atheist, pantheist, and monist. Meanwhile I
read Ibsen, and wisely discussed the new school of domestic relationships.
Mother — dear mother! — looked on aghast. She feared, I think, for my life;
certainly for my sanity and morals.
It was Father this time who came to the rescue. He pooh-poohed Mother's
fears; said it was indigestion that ailed me, or that I was growing too fast; or
perhaps I didn't get enough sleep, or needed, maybe, a good tonic. He took me
out of school, and made it a point to accompany me on long walks. He talked with
me — not to me — about the birds and the trees and the sunsets, and then about
the deeper things of life, until, before I realized it, I was sane and sensible
once more, serene and happy in the simple faith of my childhood, with all the
isms and ologies a mere bad dream in the dim past.
I was seventeen, if I remember rightly, when I became worried, not over my
heavenly estate now, but my earthly one. I must have a career, of course. No
namby-pamby everyday living of dishes and dusting and meals and babies for me.
It was all very well, of course, for some people. Such things had to be. But for
me —
I could write, of course; but I was not sure but that I preferred the stage.
At the same time there was within me a deep stirring as of a call to go out and
enlighten the world, especially that portion of it in darkest Africa or
deadliest India. I would be a missionary.
Before I was eighteen, however, I had abandoned all this. Father put his foot
down hard on the missionary project, and Mother put hers down on the stage idea.
I didn't mind so much, though, as I remember, for on further study and
consideration, I found that flowers and applause were not all of an actor's
life, and that Africa and India were not entirely desirable as a place of res-
idence for a young woman alone. Besides, I had decided by then that I could
enlighten the world just as effectually (and much more comfortably) by writing
stories at home and getting them printed.
So I wrote stories — but I did not get any of them printed, in spite of my
earnest efforts. In time, therefore, that idea, also, was abandoned; and with
it, regretfully, the idea of enlightening the world at all.
Besides, I had just then (again if I remember rightfully) fallen in love.
Not that it was the first time. Oh, no, not at eighteen, when at thirteen I
had begun confidently and happily to look for it! What a sentimental little
piece I was! How could they have been so patient with me — Father, Mother,
everybody!
I think the first real attack — the first that I consciously called love,
myself — was the winter after we had all come back to Andersonville to live. I
was sixteen and in the high school.
It was Paul Mayhew — yes, the same Paul Mayhew that had defied his mother
and sister and walked home with me one night and invited me to go for an
automobile ride, only to be sent, sharply about his business by my stern,
inexorable Aunt Jane. Paul was in the senior class now, and the handsomest, most
admired boy in school. He didn't care for girls. That is, he — said he didn't.
He bore himself with a supreme indifference that was maddening, and that took
(appar- ently) no notice of the fact that every girl in school was a willing
slave to the mere nodding of his head or the beckoning of his hand.
This was the condition of things when I entered school that fall, and perhaps
for a week thereafter. Then one day, very suddenly, and without apparent reason,
he awoke to the fact of my existence. Candy, flowers, books — some one of these
he brought to me every morning. All during the school day he was my devoted
gallant, dancing attendance every possible minute outside of session hours, and
walking home with me in the afternoon, proudly carrying my books. Did I say
"home with me"? That is not strictly true — he always stopped just one block
short of "home" — one block short of my gate. He evidently had not forgotten
Aunt Jane, and did not intend to take any foolish risks! So he said good-bye to
me always at a safe distance.
That this savored of deception, or was in any way objectionable, did not seem
to have occurred to me. Even if it had, I doubt very much if my course would
have been altered, for I was be- witched and fascinated and thrilled with the
excitement of it all. I was sixteen, remember, and this wonderful Adonis and
woman-hater had chosen me, me I — and left all the other girls desolate and
sighing, looking after us with longing eyes. Of course, I was thrilled!
This went on for perhaps a week. Then he asked me to attend a school
sleigh-ride and supper with him.
I was wild with delight. At the same time I was wild with apprehension. I
awoke suddenly to the fact of the existence of Father and Mother, and that their
permission must be gained. And I had my doubts — I had very grave doubts. Yet
it seemed to me at that moment that I just had to go on that sleigh-ride. That
it was the only thing in the whole wide world worth while.
I can remember now, as if it were yesterday, the way I debated in my mind as
to whether I should ask Father, Mother, or both together; and if I should let it
be seen how greatly I desired to go, and how much it meant to me; or if I should
just mention it as in passing, and take their permission practically for
granted.
I chose the latter course, and I took a time when they were both together. At
the breakfast-table I mentioned casually that the school was to have a
sleigh-ride and supper the next Friday afternoon and evening, and that Paul
Mayhew had asked me to go with him. I said I hoped it would be a pleasant night,
but that I should wear my sweater under my coat, anyway, and I'd wear my
leggings, too, if they thought it necessary.
(Sweater and leggings! Two of Mother's hobbies. Artful child!)
But if I thought that a sweater and a pair of leggings could muffle their
ears as to what had gone before, I soon found my mistake.
"A sleigh-ride, supper, and not come home until evening?" cried Mother. "And
with whom, did you say?"
"Paul Mayhew," I answered. I still tried to speak casually; at the same time
I tried to indicate by voice and manner something of the great honor that had
been bestowed upon their daughter.
Father was impressed — plainly impressed; but not at all in the way I had
hoped he would be. He gave me a swift, sharp glance; then looked straight at
Mother.
"Humph! Paul Mayhew! Yes, I know him," he said grimly. "And I'm dreading the
time when he comes into college next year."
"You mean — " Mother hesitated and stopped.
"I mean I don't like the company he keeps — already," nodded Father.
"Then you don't think that Mary Marie — Mother hesitated again, and glanced
at me.
"Certainly not," said Father decidedly.
I knew then, of course, that he meant I couldn't go on the sleigh-ride, even
though he hadn't said the words right out. I forgot all about being casual and
indifferent and matter-of-course then. I thought only of showing them how
absolutely necessary it was for them to let me go on that sleigh-ride, unless
they wanted my life forevermore hopelessly blighted.
I explained carefully how he was the handsomest, most popular boy in school,
and how all the girls were just crazy to be asked to go anywhere with him; and I
argued what if Father had seen him with boys he did not like — then that was
all the more reason why nice girls like me, when he asked them, should go with
him, so as to keep him away from the bad boys! And I told them, that this was
the first and last, and only sleigh-ride of the school that year; and I said I'd
be heart-broken, just heart-broken, if they did not let me go. And 1 reminded
them again that he was the very handsomest, most popular boy in school; and that
there wasn't a girl I knew who wouldn't be crazy to be in my shoes.
Then I stopped, all out of breath, and I can imagine just how pleading and
palpitating I looked.
I thought Father was going to refuse right away, but I saw the glance that
Mother threw him — the glance that said, "Let me attend to this, dear." I'd
seen that glance before, several times, and 1 knew just what it meant; so 1
wasn't surprised to see Father shrug his shoulders and turn away as Mother said
to me:
'"Very well, dear. I'll think it over and let you know to-night."
But I was surprised that night to have Mother say I could go, for I'd about
given up hope, after all that talk at the breakfast-table. And she said
something else that surprised me, too. She said she'd like to know Paul Mayhew
herself; that she always wanted to know the friends of her little girl. And she
told me to ask him to call the next evening and play checkers or chess with me.
Happy? I could scarcely contain myself for joy. Arid when the next evening
came bringing Paul, and Mother, all prettily dressed as if he were really truly
company, came into the room and talked so beautifully to him, I was even more
entranced. To be sure, it did bother me a little that Paul laughed so much, and
so loudly, and that he couldn't seem to find anything to talk about only
himself, and what he was doing, and what he was going to do. Some way, he had
never seemed like that at school. And I was afraid Mother wouldn't like that.
All the evening I was watching and listening with her eyes and her ears
everything he did, everything he said. — I so wanted Mother to like him! I so
wanted Mother to see how really fine and splendid and noble he was. But that
evening — Why couldn't he stop talking about the prizes he'd won, and the big
racing car he'd just ordered for next summer? There was nothing fine and
splendid and noble about that. And were his finger nails always so dirty?
Why, Mother would think —
Mother did not stay in the room all the time; but she was in more or less
often to watch the game; and at half-past nine she brought in some little cakes
and lemonade as a surprise. I thought it was lovely; but I could have shaken
Paul when he pretended to be afraid of it, and asked Mother if there was a stick
in it.
The idea — Mother! A stick!
I just knew Mother wouldn't like that. But if. she didn't, she never showed a
thing in her face. She just smiled, and said no, there wasn't any stick in it;
and passed the cakes.
When he had gone I remember I didn't like to meet Mother's eyes, and I didn't
ask her how she liked Paul Mayhew. I kept right on talking fast about something
else. Some way, I didn't want Mother to talk then, for fear of what she would
say.
And Mother didn't say anything about Paul Mayhew — then. But only a few days
later she told me to invite him again to the house (this time to a chafing-dish
supper), and to ask Carrie Heywood and Fred Small, too.
We had a beautiful time, only again Paul Mayhew didn't "show off " at all in
the way I wanted him to — though he most emphatically "showed off " in his way!
It seemed to me that he bragged even more about himself and his belongings than
he had before. And I didn't like at all the way he ate his food. Why, Father
didn't eat like that — with such a noisy mouth, and such a rattling of the
silverware!
And so it went — wise mother that she was! Far from prohibiting me to have
anything to do with Paul Mayhew, she let me see all I wanted to of him,
particularly in my own home. She let me go out with him, properly chaperoned,
and she never, by word or manner, hinted that she didn't admire his conceit and
braggadocio.
And it all came out exactly as I suspect she had planned from the beginning.
When Paul Mayhew asked to be my escort to the class reception in June, I
declined with thanks, and immediately afterwards told Fred Small I would go with
him. But even when I told Mother nonchalantly, and with carefully averted eyes,
that I was going to the reception with Fred Small — even then her pleasant
"Well, that's good!" conveyed only cheery mother interest; nor did a hasty
glance into her face discover so much as a lifted eyebrow to hint, "I thought
you'd come to your senses sometime!"
Wise little mother that she was!
In the days and weeks that followed (though nothing was said) I detected a
subtle change in certain matters, however. And as I look back at it now, I am
sure I can trace its origin to my "affair" with Paul Mayhew. Evidently Mother
had no intention of running the risk of any more block-away courtships; also
evidently she intended to know who my friends were. At all events, the old
Anderson mansion soon became the rendezvous of all the boys and girls of my
acquaintance. And such good times as we had, with Mother always one of us, and
ever proposmig something new and interesting!
And because boys — not a boy, but boys — - were as free to come to the
house as were girls, they soon seemed to me as commonplace and matter-of-course
and free from sentimental interest as were the girls.
Again wise little mother!
But, of course, even this did not prevent my falling in love with some one
older than myself, some one quite outside of my own circle of intimates. Almost
every girl in her teens at some time falls violently in love with some remote
being almost old enough to be her father — a being whom she endows with all the
graces and per- fections of her dream Adonis. For, after all, it isn't that she
is in love with him, this man of flesh and blood before her; it is that she is
in love with love. A very different matter.
My especial attack of this kind came to me when I was barely eighteen, the
spring I was being graduated from the Andersonville High School. And the visible
embodiment of my adora- tion was the head master, Mr. Harold Hartshorn, a
handsome, clean-shaven, well-set-up man of (I should judge) thirty-five years of
age, rather grave, a little stern, and very dignified.
But how I adored him! How I hung upon his every word, his every glance! How I
maneuvered to win from him a few minutes' conversation on a Latin verb or a
French translation! How I thrilled if he bestowed upon me one of his infrequent
smiles! How I grieved over his stem aloofness!
By the end of a month I had evolved this: his stern aloofness meant that he
had been disappointed in love; his melancholy was loneliness — his heart was
breaking. How I longed to help, to heal, to cure! How I thrilled at the thought
of the love and companionship I could give him somewhere in a rose-embowered
cottage far from the madding crowd! (He boarded at the Andersonville Hotel alone
now.) What nobler career could I have than the blotting out of his stricken
heart the memory of that faithless woman who had so wounded him and blighted his
youth? What, indeed? If only he could see it as I saw it. If only by some sign
or token he could know of the warm love that was his but for the asking! Could
he not. see that no longer need he pine alone and unappreciated in the
Andersonville Hotel? Why, in just a few weeks I was to be through school. And
then —
On the night before commencement Mr. Harold Hartshorn ascended our front
steps, rang the bell, and called for my father. I knew because I was upstairs in
my room over the front door; and I saw him come up the walk and heard him ask
for Father.
Oh, joy! Oh, happy day! He knew. He had seen it as I saw it. He had come to
gain Father's permission, that he might be a duly accredited suitor for my hand!
During the next ecstatic ten minutes, with my hand pressed against my wildly
beating heart, I planned my wedding dress, selected with care and discrimination
my trousseau, furnished the rose-embowered cottage far from the madding crowd —
and wondered why Father did not send for me. Then the slam of the screen door
downstairs sent me to the window, a sickening terror within me.
Was he going — without seeing me, his future bride? Impossible!
Father and Mr. Harold Hartshorn stood on the front steps below, talking. In
another minute Mr. Harold Hartshorn had walked away, and Father had turned back
on to the piazza.
As soon as I could control my shaking knees, I went downstairs.
Father was in his favorite rocking-chair. I advanced slowly. I did not sit
down.
"Was that Mr. Hartshorn?" I asked, trying to keep the shake out of my voice.
"Yes."
"Mr. H-Hartshom," I repeated stupidly.
"Yes. He came to see me about the Downer place," nodded Father. "He wants to
rent it for next year."
"To rent it — the Downer place! " (The Downer place was no rose-embowered
cottage far from the madding crowd! Why, it was big, and brick, and right next
to the hotel! I didn't want to live there.)
"Yes — for his wife and family. He's going to bring them back with him next
year," explained Father.
"His wife and family!" I can imagine about how I gasped out those four words.
"Yes. He has five children, I believe, and — "
But I had fled to my room.
After all, my recovery was rapid. I was in love with love, you see; not with
Mr. Harold Hartshorn. Besides, the next year I went to college. And it was while
I was at college that I met Jerry.
Jerry was the brother of my college friend, Helen Weston. Helen's elder
sister was a senior in that same college, and was graduated at the close of my
freshman year. The father, mother, and brother came on to the graduation. And
that is where I met Jerry.
If it might be called meeting him. He lifted his hat, bowed, said a polite
nothing with his lips, and an indifferent "Oh, some friend of Helen's," with his
eyes, and turned to a radiant blonde senior at my side.
And that was all — for him. But for me —
All that day I watched him whenever opportunity offered; and I suspect that I
took care that opportunity offered frequently. I was fascinated. I had never
seen any one like him before. Tall, handsome, brilliant, at perfect ease, he
plainly dominated every group of which he was a part. Toward him every face was
turned — yet he never seemed to know it. (Whatever his faults, Jerry is not
conceited. I will give him credit for that!) To me he did not speak again that
day. I am not sure that he even looked at me. If he did there must still have
been in his eyes only the "Oh, some friend of Helen's," that I had seen at the
morning introduction.
I did not meet Jerry Weston again for nearly a year; but that did not mean
that I did not hear of him. I wonder if Helen ever noticed how often I used to
get her to talk of her home and her family life; and how interested I was in her
gallery of portraits on the mantel — there were two fine ones of her brother
there.
Helen was very fond of her brother. I soon found that she loved to talk about
him — if she had a good listener. Needless to say she had a very good one in
me.
Jerry was an artist, it seemed. He was twenty-eight years old, and already he
had won no small distinction. Prizes, medals, honorable mention, and a special
course abroad — all these Helen told me about. She told me, too, about the
wonderful success he had just had with the portrait of a certain New York
society woman. She said that it was just going to "make" Jerry; that he could
have anything he wanted now — anything. Then she told me how popular he always
was with everybody. Helen was not only very fond of her brother, but very proud
of him. That was plain to be seen. In her opinion, evidently, there was none to
be compared with him.
And apparently, in my own mind, I agreed with her — there was none to be
compared with him. At all events, all the other boys that used to call and bring
me candy and send me flowers at about this time suffered woefully in comparison
with him! I remember that. So tame they were — so crude and young and
unpolished!
I saw Jerry myself during the Easter vacation of my second year in college.
Helen invited me to go home with her, and Mother wrote that I might go. Helen
had been home with me for the Christmas vacation, and Mother and Father liked
her very much. There was no hesitation, therefore, in their consent that I
should visit Helen at Easter-time. So I went.
Helen lived in New York. Their home was a Fifth-Avenue mansion with nine
servants, four automobiles, and two chauffeurs. Naturally such a scale of living
was entirely new to me, and cor- respondingly fascinating. From the elaborately
uniformed footman that opened the door for me to the awesome French maid who
"did" my hair, I adored them all, and moved as in a dream of enchantment. Then
came Jerry home from a week-end's trip — and I forgot everything else.
I knew from the minute his eyes looked into mine that whatever I had been
before, I was now certainly no mere "Oh, some friend of Helen's." I was (so his
eyes said) "a deucedly pretty girl, and one well worth cultivating." Whereupon
he began at once to do the "cultivating."
And just here, perversely enough, I grew indifferent. Or was it only feigned
— not consciously, but unconsciously? Whatever it was, it did not endure long.
Nothing could have endured, under the circumstances. Nothing ever endures —
with Jerry on the other side.
In less than thirty-six hours I was caught up in the whirlwind of his wooing,
and would not have escaped it if I could.
When I went back to college he held my promise that if he could gain the
consent of Father and Mother, he might put the engagement ring on my finger.
Back at college, alone in my own room, I drew a long breath, and began to
think. It was the first chance I had had, for even Helen now had become Jerry —
by reflection.
The more I thought, the more frightened, dismayed, and despairing I became.
In the clear light of calm, sane reasoning, it was all so absurd, so impossible!
What could I have been thinking of?
Of Jerry, of course.
With hot cheeks I answered my own question. And even the thought of him then
cast the spell of his presence about me, and again I was back in the whirl of
dining and dancing and motoring, with his dear face at my side. Of Jerry; yes,
of Jerry I was thinking. But I must forget Jerry.
I pictured Jerry in Andersonville, in my own home. I tried to picture him
talking to Father, to Mother.
Absurd! What had Jerry to do with learned treatises on stars, or with the
humdrum, everyday life of a stupid small town? For that matter, what had Father
and Mother to do with dancing and motoring and painting society queens'
portraits? Nothing.
Plainly, even if Jerry, for the sake of the daughter, liked Father and
Mother, Father and Mother certainly would not like Jerry. That was certain.
Of course I cried myself to sleep that night. That was to be expected. Jerry
was the world; and the world was lost. There was nothing left except, perhaps, a
few remnants and pieces, scarcely worth the counting — excepting, of course,
Father and Mother. But one could not always have one's father and mother. There
would come a time when —
Jerry's letter came the next day — by special delivery. He bad gone straight
home from the station and begun to write to me. (How like Jerry that was —
particularly the special-delivery stamp!) The most of his letter, aside from the
usual lover's rhapsodies, had to do with plans for the summer — what we would
do together at the Westons' summer cottage in Newport. He said he should run up
to Andersonville early — very early; just as soon as I was back from coI- lege,
in fact, so that he might meet Father and Mother, and put that ring on my
finger.
And while I read the letter, I just knew he would do it. Why, I could even
see the sparkle of the ring on my finger. But in five minutes after the letter
was folded and put away, I knew, with equal certitude — that he wouldn't.
It was like that all that spring term. While under the spell of the letters,
as I read them, I saw myself the adored wife of Jerry Weston, and happy ever
after. All the rest of the time I knew myself to be plain Mary Marie Anderson,
forever lonely and desolate.
I had been at home exactly eight hours when a telegram from Jerry asked
permission to come at once.
As gently as I could I broke the news to Father and Mother. He was Helen's
brother. They must have heard me mention him. I knew him well, very well,
indeed. In fact, the purpose of this visit was to ask them for the hand of their
daughter.
Father frowned and scolded, and said, "Tut, tut!" and that I was nothing but
a child. But Mother smiled and shook her head, even while she sighed, and
reminded him that I was twenty-two whole years older than she was when she
married him; though in the same breath she admitted that I was young, and she
certainly hoped I'd be willing to wait before I married, even if the young man
was all that they could ask him to be.
Father was still a little rebellious, I think; but Mother — bless her dear
sympathetic heart! — soon convinced him that they must at least consent to see
this Gerald Weston. So I sent the wire inviting him to come.
More fearfully than ever then I awaited the meeting between my lover and my
father and mother. With the Westons' mansion and manner of living in the
glorified past, and the Anderson homestead, and itsmanner of living, very much
in the plain, unvarnished present, I trembled more than ever for the results of
that meeting. Not that I believed Jerry would be snobbish enough to scorn our
simplicity, but that there would be no common meeting-ground of congeniality.
I need not have worried — but I did not know Jerry then so well as I do now.
Jerry came — and he had not been five minutes in the house before it might
easily have seemed that he had always been there. He did know about stars; at
least, he talked with Father about them, and so as to hold Father's interest,
too. And he knew a lot about innumerable things in which Mother was interested.
He stayed four days; and all the while he was there, I never so much as thought
of ceremonious dress and dinners, and liveried butlers and footmen; nor did it
once occur to me that our simple kitchen Nora, and Old John's son at the wheel
of our one motorcar, were not beautifully and entirely adequate, so unassumingly
and so perfectly did Jerry unmistakably "fit in." (There are no other words that
so exactly express what I mean.) And in the end, even his charm and his triumph
were so unobtrusively complete that I never thought of being surprised at the
prompt capitulation of both Father and Mother.
Jerry had brought the ring. (Jerry always brings his "rings" — and he never
fails to "put them on.") And he went back to New York with Mother's promise that
I should visit them in July at their cottage in Newport.
They seemed like a dream — those four days — after he had gone; and I
should have been tempted to doubt the whole thing had there not been the sparkle
of the ring on my finger, and the frequent reference to Jerry on the lips of
both Father and Mother.
They loved Jerry, both of them. Father said he was a fine, manly young
fellow; and Mother said he was a dear boy, a very dear boy. Neither of them
spoke much of his painting. Jerry himself had scarcely mentioned it to them, as
I remembered, after he had gone.
I went to Newport in July. "The cottage," as I suspected, was twice as large
and twice as pretentious as the New York residence; and it sported twice the
number of servants. Once again I was caught in the whirl of dinners and dances
and motoring, with the addition of tennis and bathing. And always, at my side,
was Jerry, seemingly living only upon my lightest whim and fancy. He wished to
paint my portrait; but there was no time, especially as my visit, in accordance
with Mother's inexorable decision, was of only one week's duration.
But what a wonderful week that was! I seemed to be under a kind of spell. It
was as if I were in a new world — a world such as no one had ever been in
before. Oh, I knew, of course, that others had loved — but not as we loved. I
was sure that no one had ever loved as we loved. And it was so much more
wonderful than anything I had ever dreamed of — this love of ours. Yet all my
life since my early teens I had been thinking and planning and waiting for it —
love. And now it had come — the real thing. The others — all the others had
been shams and make-believes and counterfeits. To think that I ever thought
those silly little episodes with Paul Mayhew and Freddy Small and Mr. Harold
Hartshorn were love! Absurd! But now —
And so I walked and moved and breathed in this spell that had been cast upon
me; and thought — little fool that I was! — that never had there been before,
nor could there be again, a love quite so wonderful as ours.
At Newport Jerry decided that he wanted to be married right away. He didn't
want to wait two more endless years until I was graduated. The idea of wasting
all that valuable time when we might be together! And when there was really no
reason for it, either — no reason at all!
I smiled to myself, even as I thrilled at his sweet insistence. I was pretty
sure I knew two reasons — two very good reasons — why I could not marry before
graduation. One reason was Father; the other reason was Mother. I hinted as
much.
"Ho! Is that all?" He laughed and kissed me. "I'll run down and see them
about it," he said jauntily.
I smiled again. I had no more idea that anything he could say would — But I
didn't know Jerry — then.
I had not been home from Newport a week when Jerry kept his promise and "ran
down." And he had not been I there two days before Father and Mother admitted
that, perhaps, after all, it would not be so bad an idea if I shouldn't
graduate, but should be married instead.
And so I was married.
(Didn't I tell you that Jerry always brought his rings and put them on?)
And again I say, and so we were married.
But what did we know of each other? — the real other? True, we had danced
together, been swimming together, dined together, played tennis together. But
what did we really know of each other's whims and prejudices, opinions and
personal habits and tastes? I knew, to a word, what Jerry would say about a
sunset; and he knew, I fancy, what I would say about a dreamy waltz song. But we
didn't either of us know what the other would say to a dinnerless home with the
cook gone. We were leaving a good deal to be learned later on; but we didn't
think of that. Love that is to last must be built upon the realization that
troubles and trials and sorrows are sure to come, and that they must be borne
together — if one back is not to break under the load. We were entering into a
contract, not for a week, but, presumedly, for a lifetime — and a good deal may
come to one in a lifetime — not all of it pleasant. We had been brought up in
two distinctly different social environments, but we didn't stop to think of
that. We liked the same sunsets, and the same make of car, and the same kind of
ice-cream; and we looked into each other's eyes and thought we knew the other —
whereas we were really only seeing the mirrored reflection of ourselves.
And so we were married.
It was everything that was blissful and delightful, of course, at first. We
were still eating the ice-cream and admiring the sunsets. I had forgotten that
there were things other than sunsets and ice-cream, I suspect. I was not
twenty-one, remember, and my feet fairly ached to dance. The whole world was a
show. Music, lights, laughter — how I loved them all!
Marie, of course. Well, yes, I suspect Marie was in the ascendancy about that
time. But I never thought of it that way.
Then came the baby, Eunice, my little girl; and with one touch of her tiny,
clinging fingers, the whole world of sham — the lights and music and glare and
glitter just faded all away into nothingness, where it belonged. As if anything
counted, with her on the other side of the scales!
I found out then — oh, I found out lots of things. You see, it wasn't that
way at all with Jerry. The lights and music and the glitter and the sham didn't
fade away a mite, to him, when Eunice came. In fact, sometimes it seemed to me
they just grew stronger, if anything.
He didn't like it because I couldn't go with him any more — to dances and
things, I mean. He said the nurse could take care of Eunice. As if I'd leave my
baby with any nurse that ever lived, for any old dance! The idea! But Jerry
went. At first he stayed with me; but the baby cried, and Jerry didn't like
that. It made him irritable and nervous, until I was glad to have him go. (Who
wouldn't be, with his eternal repetition of "Mollie, can't you stop that baby's
crying? " As if that wasn't exactly what I was trying to do, as hard as ever I
could!) But Jerry didn't see it that way. Jerry never did appreciate what a
wonderful, glorious thing just being a father is.
I think it was at about this time that Jerry took up his painting again. I
guess I have forgotten to mention that all through the first two years of our
marriage, before the baby came, he just tended to me. He never painted a single
picture. But after Eunice came —
But, after all, what is the use of going over these last miserable years like
this? Eunice is five now. Her father is the most popular portrait painter in the
country. I am almost tempted to say that he is the most popular man, as well.
All the old charm and magnetism are there. Sometimes I watch him (for, of
course, I do go out with him once in a while), and always I think of that first
day I saw him at college. Brilliant, polished, witty — he still dominates every
group of which he is a member. Men and women alike bow to his charm. (I'm glad
it's not only the women. Jerry isn't a bit of a flirt. I will say that much for
him. At any rate, if he does flirt, he flirts just as desperately with old Judge
Randlett as he does with the newest and prettiest debutante: with serene
impartiality he bestows upon each the same glances, the same wit, the same
adorable charm.) Praise, attention, applause, music, laughter, lights — they
are the breath of life to him. Without them he would — But, there, he never is
without them, so I don't know what he would be.
After all, I suspect that it's just that Jerry still loves the ice-cream and
the sunsets, and I don't. That's all. To me there's something more to life than
that — something higher, deeper, more worth while. We haven't a taste in
common, a thought in unison, an aspiration in harmony. I suspect — in fact I
know — that I get on his nerves just as raspingly as he does on mine. For that
reason I'm sure he'll be glad — when he gets my letter.
But, some way, I dread to tell Mother.
Well, it's finished. I've been about four days bringing this autobiography of
Mary Marie's to an end. I've enjoyed doing it, in a way, though I'll have to
admit I can't see as it's made things any clearer. But, then, it was clear
before. There isn't any other way. I've got to write that letter. As I said
before, I regret that it must be so sorry an ending.
I suppose to-morrow I'll have to tell Mother. I want to tell her, of course,
before I write the letter to Jerry.
It'll grieve Mother. I know it will. And I'm sorry. Poor Mother! Already
she's had so much unhappiness in her life. But she's happy now. She and Father
are wonderful together — wonderful. Father is still President of the college.
He got out a wonderful book on the "Eclipses of the Moon" two years ago, and
he's publishing another one about the "Eclipses of the Sun" this year. Mother's
correcting proof for him. Bless her heart. She loves it. She told me so.
Well, I shall have to tell her to-morrow, of course.
To-morrow — which has become to-day.
I wonder if Mother knew what I had come into her little sitting-room this
morning to say. It seems as if she must have known. And yet —
I had wondered how I was going to begin, but, before I knew it, I was right
in the middle of it — the subject, I mean. That's why I thought perhaps that
Mother —
But I'm getting as bad as little Mary Marie of the long ago. I'll try now to
tell what did happen.
I was wetting my lips, and swallowing, and wondering how I was going to begin
to tell her that I was planning not to go back to Jerry, when all of a sudden I
found myself saying something about little Eunice. And then Mother said:
"Yes, my dear; and that's what comforts me most of anything — because you
are so devoted to Eunice. You see, I have feared sometimes — for you and Jerry;
that you might separate. But I know, on account of Eunice, that you never will."
"But, Mother, that's the very reason — I mean, it would be the reason," I
stammered. Then I stopped. My tongue just wouldn't move, my throat and lips were
so dry.
To think that Mother suspected — knew al- ready — about Jerry and me; and
yet to say that on account of Eunice I would not do it. Why, it was for Eunice,
largely, that I was going to do it. To let that child grow up thinking that
dancing and motoring was all of life, and —
But Mother was speaking again.
"Eunice — yes. You mean that you never would make her go through what you
went through when you were her age."
"Why, Mother, I — I — " And then I stopped again. And I was so angry and
indignant with myself because I had to stop, when there were so many, many
things that I wanted to say, if only my dry lips could articulate the words.
Mother drew her breath in with a little catch. She had grown rather white.
"I wonder if you remember — if you ever think of — your childhood," she
said.
"Why, yes, of — of course — sometimes." It was my turn to stammer. I was
thinking of that diary that I had just read — and added to.
Mother drew in her breath again, this time with a catch that was almost a
sob. And then she began to talk — at first haltingly, with half-finished
sentences; then hurriedly, with a rush of words that seemed not able to utter
themselves fast enough to keep up with the thoughts behind them.
She told of her youth and marriage, and of my coming. She told of her life
with Father, and of the mistakes she made. She told much, of course, that was in
Mary Marie's diary; but she told, too, oh, so much more, until like a panorama
the whole thing lay before me.
Then she spoke of me, and of my childhood, and her voice began to quiver. She
told of the Mary and the Marie, and of the dual nature within me. (As if I
didn't know about that!) But she told me much that I did not know, and she made
things much clearer to me, until I saw —
You can see things so much more clearly when you stand off at a distance like
this, you know, than you can when you are close to them!
She broke down and cried when she spoke of the divorce, and of the influence
it had upon me, and of the false idea of marriage it gave me. She said it was
the worst kind of thing for me the sort of life I had to live. She said I grew
pert and precocious and worldly-wise, and full of servants' talk and ideas. She
even spoke of that night at the little cafe table when I gloried in the sparkle
and spangles and told her that now we were seeing life — real life. And of how
shocked she was, and of how she saw then what this thing was doing to me. But it
was too late.
She told more, much more, about the later years, and the reconciliation;
then, some way, she brought things around to Jerry and me. Her face flushed up
then, and she didn't meet my eyes. She looked down at her sewing. She was very
busy turning a hem just so.
She said there had been a time, once, when she had worried a little about
Jerry and me, for fear we would — separate. She said that she believed that,
for her, that would have been the very blackest moment of her life; for it would
be her fault., all her fault.
I tried to break in here, and say, "No, no," and that it wasn't her fault;
but she shook her head and wouldn't listen, and she lifted her hand, and I had
to keep still and let her go on talking. She was looking straight into my eyes
then, and there was such a deep, deep hurt in them that I just had to listen.
She said again that it would be her fault; that if I had done that she would
have known that it was all because of the example she herself bad set me of
childish willfulness and selfish seeking of personal happiness at the expense of
everything and everybody else. And she said that that would have been the last
straw to break her heart.
But she declared that she was sure now that she need not worry. Such a thing
would never be.
I guess I gasped a little at this. Anyhow, I know I tried to break in and
tell her that we were going to separate, and that that was exactly what I had
come into the room in the first place to say.
But again she kept right on talking, and I was silenced before I had even
begun.
She said how she knew it could never be — on account of Eunice. That I would
never subject my little girl to the sort of wretchedly divided life that I had
had to live when I was a child.
(As she spoke I was suddenly back in the cobwebby attic with little Mary
Marie's diary, and I thought — what if it were Eunice — writing that!)
She said I was the most devoted mother she had ever known; that I was too
devoted, she feared sometimes, for I made Eunice all my world, to the exclusion
of Jerry and everything and everybody else. But that she was very sure, because
I was so devoted, and loved Eunice so dearly, that I would never deprive her of
a father's love and care.
I shivered a little, and looked quickly into Mother's face. But she was not
looking at me. I was thinking of how Jerry had kissed and kissed Eunice a month
ago, when we came away, as if he just couldn't let her go. Jerry i8 fond of
Eunice, now that she's old enough to know something, and Eunice adores her
father. I knew that part was going to be hard. And now to have Mother put it
like that —
I began to talk then of Jerry. I just felt that I'd got to say something.
That Mother must listen. That she didn't understand. I told her how Jerry loved
lights and music and dancing, and crowds bowing down and worshiping him all the
time. And she said yes, she remembered; that he'd been that way when I married
him.
She spoke so sort of queerly that again I glanced at her; but she still was
looking down at the hem she was turning.
I went on then to explain that I didn't like such things; that I believed
that there were deeper and higher things, and things more worth while. And she
said yes, she was glad, and that that, was going to be my saving grace; for, of
course, I realized that there couldn't be anything deeper or higher or more
worth while than keeping the home together, and putting up with annoyances, for
the ultimate good of all, especially of Eunice.
She went right on then quickly, before I could say anything. She said that,
of course, I understood that I was still Mary and Marie, even if Jerry did call
me Mollie; and that if Marie had married a man that wasn't always congenial with
Mary, she was very sure Mary had enough stamina and good sense to make the best
of it; and she was very sure, also, that if Mary would only make a little effort
to be once in a while the Marie he had married, things might be a lot easier —
for Mary.
Of course, I laughed at that. I had to. And Mother laughed, too. But we
understood. We both understood. I had never thought of it before, but I had been
Marie when I married Jerry. I loved lights and music and dancing and gay crowds
just exactly as well as he did. And it wasn't his fault that I suddenly turned
into Mary when the baby came, and wanted him to stay at home before the fire
every evening with his dressing-gown and slippers. No wonder he was surprised.
He hadn't married Mary — he never knew Mary at all. But, do you know? I'd never
thought of that before — until Mother said what she did. Why, probably Jerry
was just as much disappointed to find his Marie turned into a Mary as I —
But Mother was talking again.
She said that she thought Jerry was a wonderful man, in some ways; that she
never saw a man with such charm and magnetism, or one who could so readily adapt
himself to different persons and circumstances. And she said she was very sure
if Mary could only show a little more interest in pictures (especially
portraits), and learn to discuss lights and shadows and perspectives, that
nothing would be lost, and that something might be gained; that. there was
nothing, anyway, like a community of interest or of hobbies to bring two people
together; and that it was safer, to say the least, when it was the wife that
shared the community of interest than when it was some other woman, though, of
course, she knew as well as I knew that Jerry never would — She didn't finish
her sentence, and because she didn't finish it, it made me think all the more.
And I wondered if she left it unfinished — on purpose.
Then, in a minute, she was talking again.
She was speaking of Eunice. She said once more that because of her, she knew
that she need never fear any serious trouble between Jerry and me, for, after
all, it's the child that always pays for the mother's mistakes and
short-sightedness, just as it is the soldier that pays for his commanding
officer's blunders. That's why she felt that I had had to pay for her mistakes,
and why she knew that I'd never compel my little girl to pay for mine. She said
that the mother lives in the heart of the child long after the mother is gone,
and that was why the mother always had to be — so careful.
Then, before I knew it, she was talking briskly and brightly about something
entirely different; and two minutes later I found myself alone outside of her
room. And I hadn't told her.
But I wasn't even thinking of that. I was thinking of Eunice, and of that
round, childish scrawl of a diary upstairs in the attic trunk. And I was
picturing Eunice, in the years to come, writing her diary; and I thought, what
if she should have to —
I went upstairs then and read that diary again. And all the while I was
reading I thought of Eunice. And when it was finished I knew that I'd never tell
Mother, that I'd never write to Jerry — not the letter that I was going to
write. I knew that —
They brought Jerry's letter to me at just that point. What a wonderful letter
that man can write — when he wants to!
He says he's lonesome and homesick, and that the house is like a tomb without
Eunice and me, and when am I coming home?
I wrote him to-night that I was going — to-morrow.
— End —