The Vehement Flame

by Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

  CHAPTER XI

  When, a year after his marriage, Maurice began to awaken to Eleanor'srealities, maturity had come to him with a bound. But it was almost agethat fell upon him when Lily's realities confronted him. In the lateafternoon, as he and Edith and the silent Johnny walked down themountain, he was dizzy with terror of Lily!

  _She was blackmailing him._

  But even as he said the word, he had an uprush of courage; he would geta lawyer, and shut her up! That's what you do when anybody blackmailsyou. Perfectly simple. "A lawyer will shut her up!" It was a hideousmess, and he had no money to spend on lawyers; but it would never getout--the newspapers couldn't get hold of it--because a lawyer would shuther up! Though, probably, he'd have to give her some money? How muchwould he have to give her? And how much would he have to pay the lawyer?He had a crazy vision of Lily's attaching his salary. He imagined adialogue with his employer: "A case of blackmail, sir." "Don't worryabout it, Curtis; we'll shut her up." This brought an instant's warmsense of safety, which as instantly vanished--and again he was walkingdown the road, with Edith beside him, talking, talking... Eleanor wouldhave to know... No! She wouldn't! He could keep it a secret. But he'dhave to tell Mr. Houghton. Then Mrs. Houghton would know! Again a waveof nausea swept over him, and he shuddered; then said to himself: "No:Uncle Henry's white. He won't even tell her."

  Edith was asking him something; he said, "Yes," entirely at random--andwas at once involved in a snarl of other questions, and other randomanswers. Under his breath he thought, despairingly, "Won't she everstop talking! ... Edith, I'll give you fifty cents if you'll keepquiet."

  Edith was willing enough to be quiet; "But," she added, practically,"would you mind giving me the fifty cents now, Maurice? You always tearoff to Eleanor the minute you get home, and I'm afraid you'll forgetit."

  He put his hand in his pocket and produced the half dollar. "Anything tokeep you still!" he said.

  "You don't mind if I talk to Johnny?"

  He didn't answer; at that moment he was not aware of her existence,still less Johnny's, for a frightful thought had stabbed him: Suppose itwasn't blackmail? _Suppose Lily had told the truth_? Suppose "it" washis? "She can't prove it--she can't prove it!" he said, aloud.

  "Prove what? Who can't?" Edith said, interested.

  Maurice didn't hear her. Suddenly he felt too sick to follow his ownthought, and go to the bottom of things; he was afraid to touch thebottom! He made a desperate effort to keep on the surface of his terrorby saying: "It's all Eleanor's fault. Damnation! Her idiotic jealousydrove me out of the house that Sunday afternoon!"

  At this moment Johnny Bennett and Edith broke into shrieks of laughter."Say, Maurice," Johnny began--

  "Can't you children be quiet for five minutes?" Maurice said. Johnnywhistled and, behind his spectacles, made big eyes at Edith. "What's_he_ got on his little chest?" Johnny inquired. But Maurice was deaf tosarcasm.... "It all goes back to Eleanor!"

  Under the chatter of the other two, it was easier to say this than tosay, "Is Lily telling the truth?" It was easier to hate Eleanor than tothink about Lily. And, hating, he said again, aloud, the single agonizedword.

  Edith stood stock-still with amazement; she could not believe her ears._Maurice_ had said--? As for Maurice, his head bent as if he werewalking in a high wind he strode on, leaving her in the road staringafter him.

  "Johnny!" said Edith; "did you hear?"

  "That's nothing," Johnny said; "I say it often, when mother ain'tround. At least I say the first part."

  "Oh, _Johnny_!" Edith said, dismayed.

  To Maurice, rushing on alone, the relief of hating Eleanor was lost inthe uprush of that ghastly possibility: "If it _is_ mine?"

  Something in him struggled to say: "If it _is_, why, then, I must--Butit isn't!" Maurice was, for the moment, a horribly scared boy; hisinstinct was to run to cover at any cost. He forgot Edith, coming homeby herself after Johnny should turn in at his own gate; he was consciousonly of his need to be alone to think this thing out and decide what hemust do. There was no possible privacy in the house. "If I go up to ourroom," he thought, frantically, "Eleanor'll burst in on me, and thenshe'll get on to it that there's something the matter!" Suddenly heremembered the chicken coop. "It's late. Edith won't be coming in." Sohe skulked around behind the house and the stable, and up the gravelpath to the henhouse. Lifting the rusty latch, he stepped quietly intothe dusky, feathery shelter. "I can think the damned business out,here," he thought. There was a scuffling "cluck" on the roosts, but whenhe sat down on an overturned box, the fowls settled into stillness and,except for an occasional sleepy squawk, the place was quiet. He drew along breath, and dropped his chin on his fist. "Now I'll think," hesaid. Then, through the cobwebby windows, he saw in the yellowing westthe new moon, and below it the line of distant hills. An old pine treestretched a shaggy branch across the window, and he said to himself thatthe moon and the hills and the branch were like a Japanese print.

  He took the letter out of his pocket--his very fingers shrinking as hetouched it--and straining his eyes in the gathering dusk, he read it allthrough. Then he looked at the moon, which was sliding--sliding behindthe pine. Yes, that ragged branch was very Japanese. If he hadn't goneout on the river that night with Edith, he would never have met Lily.The thing he had said on his wedding day, in the meadow, about"switches," flashed into his mind: "A little thing can throw theswitches."

  "Ten minutes in a rowboat," he said,--"and _this_!" One of the hensclucked. "I'll fight," he said. "Lots of men come up against this sortof thing, and they hand the whole rotten business over to a lawyer. I'llfight. Or I'll move.... Perhaps that's the best way? I'll just tellEleanor we've got to live in New York. Damn it! she'd ask why? I'll sayI have a job there. Lily'd never be able to find me in New York." Themoon slipped out below the pine, and hung for a dim moment in the haze.Maurice's mind went through a long and involved plan of concealing hisaddress from Lily when he moved to New York.... "But what would we liveon while I was finding a job?" ... Suddenly thought stopped short; hejust watched the moon, and listened to a muffled stir among the hens.Then he took out his knife, and began to cut little notches on thewindow sill. "I'll fight," he said, mechanically.

  There were running steps on the gravel path, and instantly he was on hisfeet. He had the presence of mind to put his hand into a nest, so thatwhen Edith came in she reproached him for getting ahead of her incollecting eggs.

  "How many have you got? Two? Griselda was on the nest when I started upthe mountain, but I thought there was another egg there?"

  "Only one," he said, thickly, and handed it to her.

  "Come on in the house," Edith commanded; "I suppose," she said,resignedly, "Eleanor is playing on the piano!" (Edith, as her adorationof Eleanor lessened, was frankly bored by her music.)

  "All right," Maurice said, and followed her.

  Edith asked no questions; Maurice's "word" on the road had sobered hertoo much for talk. "He's mad about something," she thought; "but I neverheard Maurice say--_that_!" She didn't quite like to repeat what he hadsaid, though Johnny had confessed to saying "part of it." "I don'tbelieve he ever did," Edith thought; "he's putting on airs! But forMaurice to say _all_ of it!--that was wrong," said Edith, gravely.

  They went out of the henhouse together in silence. Maurice was saying tohimself, "I might not be able to get a job in New York... I'll fight."Yet certain traditional decencies, slowly emerging from the welter ofhis rage and terror, made him add, "If it was mine, I'd have to give hersomething... But it isn't. I'll fight."

  He was so absorbed that before he knew it he had followed Edith to thestudio, where, in the twilight. Mr. and Mrs. Houghton were sitting onthe sofa together, hand in hand, and Eleanor was at the piano singing,softly, old songs that her hosts loved.

  "If," said Henry Houghton, listening, "heaven is any better than this, Ishall consider it needless extravagance on the part of theAlmighty,"--and he held his wife's hand against his lips. Maurice, atthe door, turned away
and would have gone upstairs, but Mr. Houghtoncalled out: "Sit down, man! If _I_ had the luck to have a wife who couldsing, I'd keep her at it! Sit down!" Eleanor's voice, lovely and nobleand serene, went on:

  "To add to golden numbers, golden numbers!0 sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!"

  Maurice sat down; it was as if, after beating against crashing seas witha cargo of shame and fear, he had turned suddenly into a still harbor:the faintly lighted studio, the stillness of the summer evening, thelovely voice--the peace and dignity and safety of it all gave him astrange sense of unreality... Then, suddenly, he heard them all laughingand telling Eleanor they were sorry for her, to have such anunappreciative husband!--and he realized that the fatigue of terror hadmade him fall asleep. Later, when he came to the supper table, he wasstill dazed. He said he had a headache, and could not eat; instantlyEleanor's anxiety was alert. She suggested hot-water bags and mustardplasters, until Mr. Houghton said to himself: "How _does_ he stand it?Mary must tell her not to be a mother to him--or a grandmother."

  All that hot evening, out on the porch, Maurice was silent--so silentthat, as they separated for the night, his guardian put a hand on hisshoulder, "Come into the studio," he said; "I want to show you a thingI've been muddling over."

  Maurice followed him into the vast, shadowy, untidy room ("No femaleswith dusters allowed on the premises!" Henry Houghton used to say),glanced at a half-finished canvas, said, "Fine!" and turned away.

  "Anything out of kilter? I mean, besides your headache?"

  "Well ... yes."

  ("He's going to say he's hard up--the extravagant cuss!" Henry Houghtonthought, with the old provoked affection.)

  "I'm bothered about ... something," Maurice began.

  ("He's squabbled with Eleanor. I wish I was asleep!")

  "Uncle Henry," Maurice said, "if you were going to see a lawyer, whowould you see?"

  "I wouldn't see him. Lawyers make their cake by cooking up otherpeople's troubles. Sit down. Let's talk it out." He settled himself in acorner of the ragged old horsehair sofa which faced the empty fireplaceand motioned Maurice to a chair. "I thought it wasn't all headache;what's the matter, boy?"

  Maurice sat down, cleared his throat, and put his hands in his pocketsso they would not betray him. "I--" he said.

  Mr. Houghton appeared absorbed in biting off the end of his cigar.

  "I--" Maurice said again.

  "Maurice," said Henry Houghton, "keep the peace. If you and Eleanor havefallen out, don't stand on your dignity. Go upstairs and say you'resorry, whether you are or not. Don't talk about lawyers."

  "My God!" said Maurice; "did you suppose it was _that_?"

  Mr. Houghton stopped biting the end of his cigar, and looked at him."Why, yes; I did. You and she are rather foolish, you know. So Isupposed--"

  Maurice dropped his face on his arms on the big dusty table, litteredwith pamphlets and charcoal studies and squeezed-out paint tubes. Aftera while he lifted his head: "_That's_ nothing. I wish it was that."

  The older man rose and stood with his back to the mantelpiece. They bothheard the clock ticking loudly. Then, almost in a whisper, Maurice said:

  "I've been--blackmailed."

  Mr. Houghton whistled.

  "I've had a letter from a woman. She says--"

  "Has she got anything on you?"

  "No proof; but--"

  "But you have made a fool of yourself?"

  "Yes."

  Mr. Houghton sat down again. "Go on," he said.

  Maurice reached for a maulstick lying across the table; then leanedover, his elbows on his knees, and tried, with two tremblingforefingers, to make it stand upright on the floor. "She's common. Shecan't prove it's--mine." His effort to keep the stick vertical withthose two shaking fingers was agonizing.

  "Begin at the beginning," Henry Houghton said.

  Maurice let the maulstick drop against his shoulder and sunk his head onhis hands. Suddenly he sat up: "What's the use of lying? She's _not_ badall through." The truth seemed to tear him as he uttered it. "That's theworst of it," he groaned. "If she was, I'd know what to do. But probablyshe's not lying... She says it's mine. Yes; I pretty well know she's notlying."

  "We'll go on the supposition that she is. I have yet to see a whitecrow. How much does she want?"

  "She's only asked me to help her, when--it's born. And of course, if it_is_ mine, I--"

  "We won't concede the 'if.'"

  "Uncle Henry," said the haggard boy, "I'm several kinds of a fool, butI'm not a skunk. I've got to be decent"

  "You should have thought of decency sooner."

  "I know. I know."

  "You'd better tell me the whole thing. Then we'll talk lawyers."

  So Maurice began the squalid story. Twice he stopped, choking downexcuses that laid the blame on Eleanor.... "It wouldn't have happened ifI hadn't been--been bothered." And again, "Something had thrown me offthe track; and I met Lily, and--"

  At last it was all said, and he had not skulked behind his wife. He hadtold everything, except those explaining things that could not be told.

  When the story was ended there was silence. The older man, guessing theuntold things, could not trust himself to speak his pity and anger anddismay. But in that moment of silence the comfort of confession made thetears stand in the boy's eyes; he said, impulsively, "Uncle Henry, Ithought you'd kick me out of the house!"

  Henry Houghton blew his nose, and spoke with husky harshness. "Eleanorhas no suspicions?" (He, too, was choking down references to Eleanorwhich must not be spoken.)

  "No. Do you think I ought to--to tell--?"

  "No! No! With some women you could make a clean breast... I know awoman--her husband hadn't a secret from her; and I know _he_ was a foolbefore his marriage! He made a clean breast of it, and she married him.But she knew the soul of him, you see? She knew that this sort of rottenfoolishness was only his body. So he worshiped her. Naturally. Properly.She meant God to him... Mighty few women like that! Candidly, I don'tthink your wife is one of them. Besides, this is _after_ marriage.That's different, Maurice. Very different. It isn't a square deal."

  Maurice made a miserable shamed sound of agreement. Then he said,huskily, "Of course I won't lie; I'll just--not tell her."

  "The thing for us to do," said Mr. Houghton, "is to get you out of thismess. Then you'll keep straight? Some fellows wouldn't. You will,because--" he paused; Maurice looked at him with scared eyes--"becauseif a man is sufficiently aware of having been a damned fool, he'simmune. I'll bet on you, Maurice."