by Frank Norris
“No,” answered Laura, simply.
“Oh, by the way,” spoke up Aunt Wess’, “we met that Mr. Corthell on the corner last night, just as he was leaving. I was real sorry not to get home here before he left. I’ve never heard him play on that big organ, and I’ve been wanting to for ever so long. I hurried home last night, hoping I might have caught him before he left. I was regularly disappointed.”
“That’s too bad,” murmured Laura, and then, for obscure reasons, she had the stupidity to add: “And we were in the art gallery the whole evening. He played beautifully.”
Towards eleven o’clock that morning Laura took her usual ride, but she had not been away from the house quite an hour before she turned back.
All at once she had remembered something. She returned homeward, now urging Crusader to a flying gallop, now curbing him to his slowest ambling walk. That which had so abruptly presented itself to her mind was the fact that Corthell’s match box — his name engraved across its front — still lay in plain sight upon the table in her sitting-room — the peculiar and particular place of her privacy.
It was so much her own, this room, that she had given orders that the servants were to ignore it in their day’s routine. She looked after its order herself. Yet, for all that, the maids or the housekeeper often passed through it, on their way to the suite beyond, and occasionally Page or Aunt Wess’ came there to read, in her absence. The family spoke of the place sometimes as the “upstairs sitting-room,” sometimes simply as “Laura’s room.”
Now, as she cantered homeward, Laura had it vividly in her mind that she had not so much as glanced at the room before leaving the house that morning. The servants would not touch the place. But it was quite possible that Aunt Wess’ or Page —
Laura, the blood mounting to her forehead, struck the horse sharply with her crop. The pettiness of the predicament, the small meanness of her situation struck across her face like the flagellations of tiny whips. That she should stoop to this! She who had held her head so high.
Abruptly she reined in the horse again. No, she would not hurry. Exercising all her self-control, she went on her way with deliberate slowness, so that it was past twelve o’clock when she dismounted under the carriage porch.
Her fingers clutched tightly about her crop, she mounted to her sitting-room and entered, closing the door behind her.
She went directly to the table, and then, catching her breath, with a quick, apprehensive sinking of the heart, stopped short. The little heart-shaped match box was gone, and on the couch in the corner of the room Page, her book fallen to the floor beside her, lay curled up and asleep.
A loop of her riding-habit over her arm, the toe of her boot tapping the floor nervously, Laura stood motionless in the centre of the room, her lips tight pressed, the fingers of one gloved hand drumming rapidly upon her riding-crop. She was bewildered, and an anxiety cruelly poignant, a dread of something she could not name, gripped suddenly at her throat.
Could she have been mistaken? Was it upon the table that she had seen the match box after all? If it lay elsewhere about the room, she must find it at once. Never had she felt so degraded as now, when, moving with such softness and swiftness as she could in her agitation command, she went here and there about the room, peering into the corners of her desk, searching upon the floor, upon the chairs, everywhere, anywhere; her face crimson, her breath failing her, her hands opening and shutting.
But the silver heart with its crown of worn gold was not to be found. Laura, at the end of half an hour, was obliged to give over searching. She was certain the match box lay upon the mahogany table when last she left the room. It had not been mislaid; of that she was now persuaded.
But while she sat at the desk, still in habit and hat, rummaging for the fourth time among the drawers and shelves, she was all at once aware, even without turning around, that Page was awake and watching her. Laura cleared her throat.
“Have you seen my blue note paper, Page?” she asked. “I want to drop a note to Mrs. Cressler, right away.”
“No,” said Page, as she rose from the couch. “No, I haven’t seen it.” She came towards her sister across the room. “I thought, maybe,” she added, gravely, as she drew the heart-shaped match box from her pocket, “that you might be looking for this. I took it. I knew you wouldn’t care to have Mr. Jadwin find it here.”
Laura struck the little silver heart from Page’s hand, with a violence that sent it spinning across the room, and sprang to her feet.
“You took it!” she cried. “You took it! How dare you! What do you mean? What do I care if Curtis should find it here? What’s it to me that he should know that Mr. Corthell came up here? Of course he was here.”
But Page, though very pale, was perfectly calm under her sister’s outburst.
“If you didn’t care whether any one knew that Mr. Corthell came up here,” she said, quietly, “why did you tell us this morning at breakfast that you and he were in the art gallery the whole evening? I thought,” she added, with elaborate blandness, “I thought I would be doing you a service in hiding the match box.”
“A service! You! What have I to hide?” cried Laura, almost inarticulate. “Of course I said we were in the art gallery the whole evening. So we were. We did — I do remember now — we did come up here for an instant, to see how my picture hung. We went downstairs again at once. We did not so much as sit down. He was not in the room two minutes.”
“He was here,” returned Page, “long enough to smoke half a dozen times.” She pointed to a silver pen tray on the mahogany table, hidden behind a book rack and littered with the ashes and charred stumps of some five or six cigarettes.
“Really, Laura,” Page remarked. “Really, you manage very awkwardly, it seems to me.”
Laura caught her riding-crop in her right hand
“Don’t you — don’t you make me forget myself;” she cried, breathlessly.
“It seems to me,” observed Page, quietly, “that you’ve done that long since, yourself.”
Laura flung the crop down and folded her arms.
“Now,” she cried, her eyes blazing and rivetted upon Page’s. “Now, just what do you mean? Sit down,” she commanded, flinging a hand towards a chair, “sit down, and tell me just what you mean by all this.”
But Page remained standing. She met her sister’s gaze without wavering.
“Do you want me to believe,” she answered, “that it made no difference to you that Mr. Corthell’s match safe was here?”
“Not the least,” exclaimed Laura. “Not the least.”
“Then why did you search for it so when you came in? I was not asleep all of the time. I saw you.”
“Because,” answered Laura, “because — I — because—” Then all at once she burst out afresh: “Have I got to answer to you for what I do? Have I got to explain? All your life long you’ve pretended to judge your sister. Now you’ve gone too far. Now I forbid it — from this day on. What I do is my affair; I’ll ask nobody’s advice. I’ll do as I please, do you understand?” The tears sprang to her eyes, the sobs strangled in her throat. “I’ll do as I please, as I please,” and with the words she sank down in the chair by her desk and struck her bare knuckles again and again upon the open lid, crying out through her tears and her sobs, and from between her tight-shut teeth: “I’ll do as I please, do you understand? As I please, as I please! I will be happy. I will, I will, I will!”
“Oh, darling, dearest—” cried Page, running forward. But Laura, on her feet once more, thrust her back.
“Don’t touch me,” she cried. “I hate you!” She put her fists to her temples and, her eyes closed, rocked herself to and fro. “Don’t you touch me. Go away from me; go away from me. I hate you; I hate you all. I hate this house, I hate this life. You are all killing me. Oh, my God, if I could only die!”
She flung herself full length upon the couch, face downward. Her sobs shook her from head to foot.
Page knelt at her side,
an arm about her shoulder, but to all her sister’s consolations Laura, her voice muffled in her folded arms, only cried:
“Let me alone, let me alone. Don’t touch me.”
For a time Page tried to make herself heard; then, after a moment’s reflection, she got up and drew out the pin in Laura’s hat. She took off the hat, loosened the scarf around Laura’s neck, and then deftly, silently, while her sister lay inert and sobbing beneath her hands, removed the stiff, tight riding-habit. She brought a towel dipped in cold water from the adjoining room and bathed Laura’s face and hands.
But her sister would not be comforted, would not respond to her entreaties or caresses. The better part of an hour went by; Page, knowing her sister’s nature, in the end held her peace, waiting for the paroxysm to wear itself out.
After a while Laura’s weeping resolved itself into long, shuddering breaths, and at length she managed to say, in a faint, choked voice:
“Will you bring me the cologne from my dressing-table, honey? My head aches so.”
And, as Page ran towards the door, she added: “And my hand mirror, too. Are my eyes all swollen?”
And that was the last word upon the subject between the two sisters.
But the evening of the same day, between eight and nine o’clock, while Laura was searching the shelves of the library for a book with which to while away the long evening that she knew impended, Corthell’s card was brought to her.
“I am not at home,” she told the servant. “Or — wait,” she added. Then, after a moment’s thought, she said: “Very well. Show him in here.”
Laura received the artist, standing very erect and pale upon the great white rug before the empty fireplace. Her hands were behind her back when he came in, and as he crossed the room she did not move.
“I was not going to see you at first,” she said. “I told the servant I was not at home. But I changed my mind — I wanted to say something to you.”
He stood at the other end of the fireplace, an elbow upon an angle of the massive mantel, and as she spoke the last words he looked at her quickly. As usual, they were quite alone. The heavy, muffling curtain of the doorway shut them in effectually.
“I have something to say to you,” continued Laura. Then, quietly enough, she said:
“You must not come to see me any more.”
He turned abruptly away from her, and for a moment did not speak. Then at last, his voice low, he faced her again and asked:
“Have I offended?”
She shook her head.
“No,” he said, quietly. “No, I knew it was not that.” There was a long silence. The artist looked at the floor his hand slowly stroking the back of one of the big leather chairs.
“I knew it must come,” he answered, at length, “sooner or later. You are right — of course. I should not have come back to America. I should not have believed that I was strong enough to trust myself. Then” — he looked at her steadily. His words came from his lips one by one, very slowly. His voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Then, I am — never to see you — again... Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what that means for me?” he cried. “Do you realise—” he drew in his breath sharply. “Never to see you again! To lose even the little that is left to me now. I — I—” He turned away quickly and walked to a window and stood a moment, his back turned, looking out, his hands clasped behind him. Then, after a long moment, he faced about. His manner was quiet again, his voice very low.
“But before I go,” he said, “will you answer me, at least, this — it can do no harm now that I am to leave you — answer me, and I know you will speak the truth: Are you happy, Laura?”
She closed her eyes.
“You have not the right to know.”
“You are not happy,” he declared. “I can see it, I know it. If you were, you would have told me so.... If I promise you,” he went on. “If I promise you to go away now, and never to try to see you again, may I come once more — to say good-by?”
She shook her head.
“It is so little for you to grant,” he pleaded, “and it is so incalculably much for me to look forward to in the little time that yet remains. I do not even ask to see you alone. I will not harass you with any heroics.”
“Oh, what good will it do,” she cried, wearily, “for you to see me again? Why will you make me more unhappy than I am? Why did you come back?”
“Because,” he answered, steadily, “because I love you more than” — he partly raised a clenched fist and let it fall slowly upon the back of the chair, “more than any other consideration in the world.”
“Don’t!” she cried. “You must not. Never, never say that to me again. Will you go — please?”
“Oh, if I had not gone from you four years ago!” he cried. “If I had only stayed then! Not a day of my life since that I have not regretted it. You could have loved me then. I know it, I know it, and, God forgive me, but I know you could love me now—”
“Will you go?” she cried.
“I dare you to say you could not,” he flashed out
Laura shut her eyes and put her hands over her ears. “I could not, I could not,” she murmured, monotonously, over and over again. “I could not, I could not.”
She heard him start suddenly, and opened her eyes in time to see him come quickly towards her. She threw out a defensive hand, but he caught the arm itself to him and, before she could resist, had kissed it again and again through the interstices of the lace sleeve. Upon her bare shoulder she felt the sudden passion of his lips.
A quick, sharp gasp, a sudden qualm of breathlessness wrenched through her, to her very finger tips, with a fierce leap of the blood, a wild bound of the heart.
She tore back from him with a violence that rent away the lace upon her arm, and stood off from him, erect and rigid, a fine, delicate, trembling vibrating through all her being. On her pale cheeks the colour suddenly flamed.
“Go, go,” was all she had voice to utter.
“And may I see you once more — only once?”
“Yes, yes, anything, only go, go — if you love me!”
He left the room. In another moment she heard the front door close.
“Curtis,” said Laura, when next she saw her husband, “Curtis, you could not — stay with me, that last time. Remember? When we were to go for a drive. Can you spend this evening with me? Just us two, here at home — or I’ll go out with you. I’ll do anything you say.” She looked at him steadily an instant. “It is not — not easy for a woman to ask — for me to ask favours like this. Each time I tell myself it will be the last. I am — you must remember this, Curtis, I am — perhaps I am a little proud. Don’t you see?”
They were at breakfast table again. It was the morning after Laura had given Corthell his dismissal. As she spoke Jadwin brought his hand down upon the table with a bang.
“You bet I will,” he exclaimed; “you bet I’ll stay with you to-night. Business can go to the devil! And we won’t go out either; we’ll stay right here. You get something to read to me, and we’ll have one of our old evenings again. We—”
All at once Jadwin paused, laid down his knife and fork, and looked strangely to and fro about the room.
“We’ll have one of our old evenings again,” he repeated, slowly.
“What is it, Curtis?” demanded his wife. “What is the matter?”
“Oh — nothing,” he answered.
“Why, yes there was. Tell me.”
“No, no. I’m all right now,” he returned, briskly enough.
“No,” she insisted. “You must tell me. Are you sick?”
He hesitated a moment. Then:
“Sick?” he queried. “No, indeed. But — I’ll tell you. Since a few days I’ve had,” he put his fingers to his forehead between his eyes, “I’ve had a queer sensation right there. It comes and goes.”
“A headache?”
“N-no. It’s hard to describe. A sort of numbness. S
ometimes it’s as though there was a heavy iron cap — a helmet on my head. And sometimes it — I don’t know it seems as if there were fog, or something or other, inside. I’ll take a good long rest this summer, as soon as we can get away. Another month or six weeks, and I’ll have things ship-shape and so as I can leave them. Then we’ll go up to Geneva, and, by Jingo, I’ll loaf.” He was silent for a moment, frowning, passing his hand across his forehead and winking his eyes. Then, with a return of his usual alertness, he looked at his watch.
“Hi!” he exclaimed. “I must be off. I won’t be home to dinner to-night. But you can expect me by eight o’clock, sure. I promise I’ll be here on the minute.”
But, as he kissed his wife good-by, Laura put her arms about his neck.
“Oh, I don’t want you to leave me at all, ever, ever! Curtis, love me, love me always, dear. And be thoughtful of me and kind to me. And remember that you are all I have in the world; you are father and mother to me, and my dear husband as well. I know you do love me; but there are times — Oh,” she cried, suddenly “if I thought you did not love me — love me better than anything, anything — I could not love you; Curtis, I could not, I could not. No, no,” she cried, “don’t interrupt. Hear me out. Maybe it is wrong of me to feel that way, but I’m only a woman, dear. I love you but I love Love too. Women are like that; right or wrong, weak or strong, they must be — must be loved above everything else in the world. Now go, go to your business; you mustn’t be late. Hark, there is Jarvis with the team. Go now. Good-by, good-by, and I’ll expect you at eight.”
True to his word, Jadwin reached his home that evening promptly at the promised hour. As he came into the house, however, the door-man met him in the hall, and, as he took his master’s hat and stick, explained that Mrs. Jadwin was in the art gallery, and that she had said he was to come there at once.
Laura had planned a little surprise. The art gallery was darkened. Here and there behind the dull-blue shades a light burned low. But one of the movable reflectors that were used to throw a light upon the pictures in the topmost rows was burning brilliantly. It was turned from Jadwin as he entered, and its broad cone of intense white light was thrown full upon Laura, who stood over against the organ in the full costume of “Theodora.”