Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Morgan looked at him. What did he mean by “a trouble”? Had he shown any signs of his distress — to anyone? It could not be possible that Stella had “babbled” to anyone — of anything.

  “I’m very fond of you, Morgan,” said his friend. “I am really. And I am a much older man than you. I have seen all manner of troubles in the world, and, frankly, there was always a woman in the case. Even theft, burglary, murder, what they call men’s crimes — who drives them to it? I tell you those old fellows were not far off the mark — what is it? ‘A wicked woman and an evil is three halfpence worse than the devil.’... Morgan, my boy, I haven’t asked you a question and I don’t intend to, but I can see that you are not easy in your mind. If there’s anything under the heavens you’d like to tell me, I’m a perfect grave for confidences.”

  “And I’m a believer in cremation,” Morgan answered lightly, offering him a matchbox.

  When the Colonel finally took his departure he followed upon the heels of Miss Peckham, who had gone out softly and was standing meditatively by the elevator.

  He thought he had seen her at the Widfields before, but not in such elaborate costume, and was now uncertain whether he knew her or not.

  She greeted him sweetly.

  “Ah! Colonel Cushing, I believe. I should know you anywhere. I’ve seen you in the parades, you know.”

  He was much flattered. “Have you indeed, and remembered my face, Miss — Mrs.—”

  “Peckham,” she interpolated. “Miss Malina Peckham. We have met at Mrs. Widfield’s — she is a very old friend of mine.... Yes, it is not the face only, but the figure. I do think that a fine man in uniform, a man who carries himself well, is simply unforgettable.”

  The Colonel shook his head. “I fear it was the uniform — not the man. A weakness of your sex, my dear young lady.”

  She took him up lightly. “Oh, we admire the uniform, if it is a handsome one, naturally. But not when it’s empty! And I’ve seen you in plain clothes, too — the same back — the same shoulders!”

  He straightened himself up at this, expanded his chest, threw back those same shoulders. “You flatter me, I am sure.” He wondered at so impressive a lady being alone there at that hour, and suggested: “We have both been at the Widfields, I fancy — a kind of Quaker-meeting visit.” To offer to press the button for the elevator seemed like a wish to shorten her stay, so he did not make it.

  “Yes, I was there,” she agreed, adding a little sadly: “But not visiting. I came on business. You see, I have to work, Colonel Cushing — I’m on a newspaper.”

  Malina’s features were greatly softened by the figured veil, the large, soft curving hat. She had also, if the truth must be told, made up a little for the present part as well as dressed for it. He could hardly believe that a lady of such attractions was a newspaperwoman, which only showed how primitive were his notions.

  “Do you — er — enjoy it?” he asked.

  “Indeed I do not!” she murmured. “No real woman could. The long hours — the exposure to the weather — meeting all kinds of people — and worse than all —— —” She gave a little shiver. “Going alone through the streets at night. Dear me,” she broke off, looking at her watch and down the elevator shaft. “How late it is! I must be off this minute. Where is that boy!”

  That boy was dozing peacefully on the bench below. No jarring bell had stirred his slumbers yet.

  “My dear young lady, do allow me — let me go with you.”

  “Oh! couldn’t think of it, Colonel Cushing. It’s wet and chilly — and so late.”

  “All the more reason you should have someone with you. It will be a pleasure to me, I assure you. And we will stop somewhere and have a little something warm to eat and drink. You must grant me the privileges of age, my dear.”

  “You are by no means old enough to claim them,” she protested, though without violence.

  “The privilege of our common friendship then — possibly of a new one between ourselves, Miss Peckham.”

  “Any friend of the Widfields is to be trusted, I am sure. Thank you,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “It will be very nice.”

  And without one condemnatory proverb the worthy gentleman accompanied her.

  CHAPTER 14

  “It’s no use, Mrs. MacAvelly,” Alicia explained in her unemphatic way. “I am interested, of course, but I haven’t the brains. I wish I had.”

  “You underrate yourself, as usual. You not only have the brain, but you have the culture, the habit of life, the special kind of experience. I wish you would let me bring him up.”

  “I’m perfectly willing you should bring Mr. Smith — and I’m sure I shall be delighted to listen to him, and glad enough to be of any assistance if I can, but really and truly, Mrs. MacAvelly, what can I do that you cannot?”

  “That ought to be plain to everyone,” her visitor replied, and Alicia felt that she must be very dull in not seeing it. “It is fortunate that he came tonight, the Colonel being out, and you for a wonder alone. He’s parading up and down my rug this minute, smoking as usual, and wondering why he should be wasting his time on me. Especially when I’m not there! I’ll run down and get him.”

  Alicia was really pleased at the prospect. Mr. Tillotson was a “writer,” but Mr. Smith was a “genius,” and a genius in that unacknowledged state where one can still claim credit for discovery. Why Stella had so patently lost interest in him she did not know, but at any rate she was now to have a chance to feed the young lion’s vanity a little, and was glad.

  “Nonsense!” said Mr. Smith brusquely when his hostess proposed that he go with her to read some of his work to Mrs. Cushing. “What do I want of your fine friends?”

  “But you surely remember Mrs. Cushing? She’s that sweet woman who sat opposite you at our little dinner last October. She was tremendously impressed with your work then, and has often spoken of you.”

  He did remember and was somewhat mollified.

  “But why do we go anywhere?” he persisted. “I came to see you — that is, I came first to see Mrs. Widfield. But she is always either out or ‘engaged’ now. I do not believe it!”

  It had dawned upon Mr. Smith’s consciousness after many fruitless attempts that he was being made the victim of that paltry subterfuge of the bourgeoisie— “not at home.”

  “You mustn’t think that,” she reassured him. “Mrs. Widfield is so busy now with her own work that I doubt if she has as much sympathy for anyone else’s, that’s all. But Mrs. Cushing is sincerely interested. You know it is not always the most brilliant women who are most appreciative.”

  He allowed himself to be persuaded.

  He was working on a novel now, a novel he considered to outrival the Russians’, a novel which should at last — at last — force a gross world to feel. This novel required even more definite knowledge of the habits and prejudices of “the master class” than had his play, and he bore in mind Mrs. Widfield’s suggestion that he must not exhibit ignorance of this species if he was to portray them at all.

  His pockets bulged with manuscript, his mind teemed with the matter and method of this latest work. And the mind of Mr. Smith was nothing if not ruthless in its preoccupation.

  So charged, he was brought into Mrs. Cushing’s pretty parlor, and his intensity partially assuaged by a particularly soft large-featured chair.

  “I am so delighted,” murmured Alicia warmly. “I have never forgotten that splendid play you began to read to us that night.”

  “Play? Oh, yes — that! It is finished. I am now engaged upon a far larger work — far more important.” His hand sought his pocket.

  “Oh, but how could it be more important? I’m sure that play was tremendously impressive.”

  “I have forgotten it.” He waved the play out of existence and pulled out his manuscript.

  “Ah, but I have not, you see.” Alicia beamed upon him. “Why, I shall never forget it. There was that wonderful young Russian, Panin — Oscar Panin — s
uch a splendid strong creature! And that horrid man from Chicago or Omaha or somewhere — a pork packer, I think he was. And the wife, Elaine. I knew a girl called Elaine and she was really just that sort of woman. She looked cold, that haughty, indifferent kind, but just think, she ran away with her father’s chauffeur.”

  He paused as he shuffled the loose papers. “Was she an American woman?” he asked sharply.

  “Of course she was,” Alicia answered him. “But American women have hearts, don’t they?”

  “You see,” Mrs. MacAvelly suggested, “not all of us share Mrs. Widfield’s strong views on the temperament of your Elaine.”

  He crushed the paper in his hand. “I knew it!” he cried. “I was right! An artist should trust his own instincts — always.”

  “Why, of course!” Alicia gazed on him, round-eyed. “I thought they did. You don’t mean to say that you let Stella influence your work, Mr. Smith?”

  Mr. Smith started to his feet and walked up and down. “She certainly did not!” he asserted with some violence. “No one has influenced my work. No one can. But we did have an argument upon that very point.”

  “It was the scene when he shows he loves her,” Mrs. MacAvelly put in. “Panin, I mean.”

  Alicia’s face lit up. “Oh, I knew it! I knew it! I felt sure that he would — that he did — it showed already, Mr. Smith, in that wonderful first act. Oh, do tell me how it came out, Mr. Smith — do!”

  He stuffed his manuscript back into his sagging pocket, and stood irresolute, the vivid interest in that piece of work reviving fast. “But I have it not with me,” he said.

  “I have,” Mrs. MacAvelly told him. “You know you let me have a copy of that act to read over — after that time we were at Mrs. Widfield’s — and you never asked for it. I’ll bring it this minute.”

  She was not long, and the flame of his new interest had not waned under Alicia’s gentle fanning when the act was put into his hands.

  “You see,” Mrs. MacAvelly explained a little breathlessly, “Mrs.

  Cushing cannot discuss technic with you as Mrs. Widfield could—”

  (He tossed his head, as if Mrs. Widfield’s ideas on technic were of no faintest consequence.) “But she can give you her point of view. I think she would respond to the note you touch unerringly.”

  “If Mr. Smith will only be good enough to read me the scene, I can tell him what I think — or rather, how I feel about it.”

  “Good!” said Mr. Smith. “That is what I wanted.”

  He looked a little disgusted, as if, in spite of his denial of all influence, he had not got what he wanted before.

  “This is not a situation for thinking, for theories; it is a situation that calls for feeling. Now see—”

  In spite of her eagerly protested remembrance he went over the first act in some detail from memory, carefully explaining how long Panin had been there, how much he had been with Elaine, often the two alone, and what her attitude had been toward him so far.

  “Here we have them,” he explained, rising and placing chairs to indicate his setting. “Here is the desk, the typewriter — Panin at work. The husband has gone — she comes in.”

  He read rather hastily the first part of his scene. “There — they are alone together. Her brutal owner is away — how she has learned to hate him! They have two hours — or think they have! From nine till eleven. Now she comes in. Remember that she loves him. He has made her love him in spite of herself — in spite of all her conventions and principles and fishlike ancestors. She was one of your cold American women, but he has melted the snow. He says:

  “‘It is only nine now. We have two beautiful hours.’

  “She answers — she is trying to resist, you understand, but weakening. She says:

  ‘“You will have your two beautiful hours all to yourself — I am going away.’ He stops her —

  “‘No, Elaine. You are not going away. You are going to stay here — with me.’

  “Elaine: ‘You seem very sure.’

  “Panin: ‘I am sure. I know you are strong and proud, but love is stronger than your strength — stronger even than your pride!’ He seizes her hands.”

  Mrs. MacAvelly broke in at this point: “And Stella says he would not — that is, that she would not let him.”

  “Oh, but she would!” cried Alicia. “Of course she would! How could she help it!”

  “Do not interrupt!” Smith was visibly annoyed. “People are always interrupting me in this scene. Perhaps—” he interrupted himself, with a critical pause, “perhaps there is some error in the construction which allows it!”

  “I am certain there is not,” Alicia assured him, with heartfelt admiration. “It’s perfectly splendid — do go on.”

  He resumed:

  “Elaine: ‘But my husband trusts me. He has never dreamed that I could care for anyone else.’

  “Panin: ‘Let him dream on. You are awake at last. You know that you love me.’

  “Elaine: ‘I will admit it. I love you!’ And she throws herself into his arms.”

  “And Stella said she would not do it,” said Mrs. MacAvelly. “She offered to show him how she would have answered.”

  “Why, Mrs. MacAvelly, how could she say so! Why, of course she throws herself in his arms. But I think she’d have done it before.”

  “Before?” Mr. Smith looked from one to the other. “Before what?”

  “Look here!” said Alicia eagerly. “I used to be good at theatricals myself when I was young.” A dimpled smile seemed to suggest some comment here, but got none. “Do let’s try it—” she continued with unchecked enthusiasm. “Here, let me look at it a moment.”

  “I’m going to see if Stella is there,” said Mrs. MacAvelly, and she slipped out.

  They did not heed her. With pretty eagerness Alicia ran over the few lines and said she was ready.

  “There — now you be sitting here — this little table will do for a desk — and I’ll come in—” She drew her visitor to the chair, retired to the dining room door and entered as Stella had done; their flats were similar.

  ‘“Is not my husband here?”’ she began in a sweet, hesitating voice.

  Mrs. MacAvelly told Stella that she had not come to see her, but wanted to run off with her husband for a moment. “Do come with me,” she said to him. “I want to show you something very amusing — very. No, I won’t tell you a word. You’ve got to come — quick! Softly, now!”

  With finger on lip she led him across the hall, and into Alicia’s dining room.

  As he caught the first words in the room beyond he started as if struck, but she held him fast, and parted the curtains a little. There was Alicia, delicately confiding to Mr. Smith that her husband trusted her, and there was Mr. Smith, violently assuring Alicia that she knew she loved him.

  Mr. Widfield stood staring, and Mrs. MacAvelly left him so and darted back across the hall.

  Alicia, coy yet melting, with laughing glance and outstretched hands cheerfully replied: “‘I admit it. I love you. I cannot resist longer — Edmond—’ or whatever his name is. I think she’d answer like that, don’t you, Mrs. MacAvelly?”

  She saw that her suggestion did not wholly please the author, and then caught sight of the new spectator. “Why, Morgan — how you startled me! You’ve spoiled Mr. Smith’s best scene.”

  Mr. Smith presented no urbane assurances. He looked from one to the other with divided disapproval, and rolled up his manuscript with nervous hands.

  “It is not the first time,” he snapped. “But it is the last. I was a fool to come here — here where I am always interrupted.” And he brusquely departed.

  Morgan came in slowly, with the expression of a sleepwalker rudely aroused. “So that’s what you were doing!” His mind was so swiftly illuminated that the very glare confused him. He did not hear Mrs. MacAvelly give Stella a warm kiss and leave her, nor her soft steps behind him.

  “Yes,” said his cousin, eager for his approval. “Don’t you thin
k I did it well?”

  “Did what well?”

  “Why, the play — the woman’s part — the surrender.”

  “If you want my honest opinion, Alicia, I think you surrendered far too easily.”

  “Oh Morgan! I wouldn’t speak to you like that.”

  “No, my dear cousin, I hope you wouldn’t. Nor should I ask you to.”

  “You know I didn’t mean that, Morgan. I think you’re very unkind tonight. I’m going to say good night.” Which she did with great dignity, and retired.

  “Of course you didn’t mean that, sis,” he called after her. “Good night,” and added sadly to himself: “You don’t know how many kinds of a fool I’ve been.... Why, Stella!”

  She turned without a word and fled back to their own home. He was with her; he stood, hesitating, at a loss for words. She began to smile, a bright sweet smile that brought light to her eyes and girlish curves to the cheeks that flushed softly as he came nearer.

  “Then you don’t — really — any longer—”

  “I don’t really deserve the wife I’ve got — nor ever did,” he replied tensely, coming nearer. “My dear girl — can you forgive me for — for what I’m ashamed to insult you by mentioning?”

  “If you’ll forgive me for the same thing, dear — precisely the same thing. Only it was no insult. I didn’t blame you a bit — she is so attractive.”

  “She’s an exceedingly tiresome, foolish, kindhearted little woman. I’m fond of Alicia, of course — but surely Stella, you couldn’t think that I”

  She faced him mischievously. “But don’t you really think she did the love scene better than I did?”

  Morgan met her glance with an air of great seriousness. “I’m not quite certain. I think I’ll try your version again — and I hope we shall not be interrupted. I ought to know the lines by this time— ‘You are awake now — you know you love me’ —— —”

  Whereat Stella abandoned her version altogether, and threw herself into her husband’s arms.