Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence

by Cosmo Hamilton

  III

  All that was healthy and normal in Joan broke into revolt. There wassomething erotic, uncanny about all this. Life or death? What was hetalking about? Her pride, too, which had never been put to such a test,was up in arms against the unfairness and cunning of the way in whichshe had been taken advantage of. She had meant to be kind and paysomething of her debt to this man, and it was a vulgar trap, whateverhe said in excuse. Let him dare to touch her. Let him dare. She wouldshow him how strong she was and put up such a fight as would amaze him.Just now she had placed herself among those old people and old trees,because she had suffered. But she was young, tingling with youth, andher slate was clean, notwithstanding the fool game that she had played,and she would keep it clean, if she had to fight her way out.

  She took up her stand behind the table, alert and watchful.

  "I don't get you when you go in for melodrama," she said. "I muchprefer your usual way of talking. Translate for me." She spokescornfully because hitherto she had been able to turn him off by scorn.

  But it didn't work this time. It was not anger that came into his eyes,only an unexpected and disconcerting reproach. He made no attempt to gonear her. He looked extraordinarily patient and gentle. She had neverseen him like this before. "Don't stand there," he said. "Come and sitdown and let's go into this sensibly, like people who have emerged fromstupidity. In any case you are not going back to Easthampton to-night."

  She began to be frightened. "Not going back to Easthampton?"

  "No, my dear."

  She left her place behind the table and went up to him. Had all theworld gone wrong? Had her foolishness been so colossal that she was tobe broken twice on the same day? "Gilbert," she said. "What is it? Whatdo you mean? Why do you say these odd things in this queer way?You're--you're frightening me, Gilbert."

  Young? She was a child as she stood there with her lovely faceupturned. It was torture to keep his hands off her and not take herlips. But he did nothing. He stood steady and waited for his brain toclear. "Odd things in a queer way? Is that how I strike you?"

  "Yes. I've never seen you in this mood before. If you've brought mehere to make me say I'm sorry, I will, because I am sorry. I'd doanything to have all these days over again--every one since I climbedout of my old bedroom window. If you said hard things to me all night Ishould deserve them all and I'll pay you what I can of my debt, butdon't ask me to pay too much. I trusted you by coming here alone. Don'tgo back on me, Gilbert."

  He touched her cheek and drew his hand away.

  "But I haven't brought you here to make you humble yourself," he said."There's nothing small in this. What you've done to me has left itsmarks, of course, deep marks. I don't think you ever really understoodthe sort of love mine is. But the hour has gone by for apologies andarguments and regrets. I'm standing on the very edge of things. I'mjust keeping my balance on the lip of eternity. It's for you to draw meback or go tumbling over with me. That's why you're here. I told youthat. Are you really so young that you don't understand?"

  "I'm a kid, I'm a kid," she cried out, going back to her old excuse."That's the trouble."

  "Then I'll put it into plain words," he said, with the same appallingcomposure. "I've had these things in my mind to say to you for hours. Ican repeat them like a parrot. If the sort of unimaginative people whomeasure everybody by themselves were to hear what I'm going to say, Isuppose they would think I'm insane. But you won't. You haveimagination. You've seen me in every stage of what I call the GreatEmotion. But you've not treated me well, Joan, or taken me seriously,and this is the one serious thing of my life."

  He was still under control, although his voice had begun to shake andhis hands to tremble. She could do nothing but wait for him to go on.The crickets and the frogs filled in the short silence.

  "And now it's come to this. I can be played with no longer. I can'twait for you any more. Either you love me, or you don't. If you do, youmust be as serious as I am, tear up your roots such as they are andcome away with me. Your husband, who counts for as little as my wife,will set the law in action. So will Alice. We will wander among anyplaces that take your fancy until we can be married and then if youwant to come back, we will. But if you don't and won't love me, I can'tlive and see you love any other man. I look upon you as mine. I createdyou for myself ten years ago. Not being able to live without you, I amnot made of the stuff to leave you behind me. I shall take you and ifthere's another life on the other side, live it with you. If not, thenwe'll snuff out together. Like all great lovers, I'm selfish, you see.That's what I meant when I talked just now about choice."

  He moved away, quietly, and piled several cushions into a corner of oneof the pews. The look of exaltation was on his face again.

  "Sit here, my dream girl," he added, with the most wonderfultenderness, "and think it over. Don't hurry. The night belongs to us."He found a match and lit a cigarette and stood at one of the windowslooking out at the stars.

  But Joan was unable to move. Her blood was as cold as ice. As though asearchlight had suddenly been thrown on to Gilbert, she saw him as hewas. "Unimaginative people will think I'm insane." ... SHE didn't thinkhe was insane, imaginative as he said she was. She KNEW it. If she hadbeen able to think of one thing but Martin and that girl and her ownchaos, she must have guessed it at Easthampton from the look in hiseyes when he helped her into his car.... He had lost his balance, goneover the dividing hue between soundness and unsoundness. And it was herfault for having fooled with his feelings. Everything was her fault,everything. And now she stood on what Gilbert had called the lip ofEternity. "Who Cares?" had come back at her like a boomerang. And as toa choice between giving herself to Gilbert or to death, what was thegood of thinking that over? She didn't love this man and never could.She loved Martin, Martin. She had always loved Martin from the momentthat she had turned and found him on the hill. She had lost him, thatwas true, He had been unable to wait. He had gone to the girl with thewhite face and the red lips and the hair that came out of a bottle. Shehad sent him to her, fool that she had been. Already she had decided tocreep back to the old prison house and thus to leave life. WithoutMartin nothing mattered. Why put up a fight for something that didn'tcount? Why continue mechanically to live when living meant waiting fordeath? Why not grasp this opportunity of leaving it actually, at once,and urge Gilbert on to stop the beating of her wounded and contriteheart? ... Death, the great consoler. Sleep, endless sleep and peace.

  But as she stood there, tempted, with the weight of Martin's discardedarmor on her shoulders and the sense of failure hanging like amillstone round her neck, she saw the creeper bursting into buds on thewall beneath the window of her old room, caught the merry glint ofyoung green on the trees below her hill, heard the piping of birds totheir nesting mates, the eager breeze singing among the waving grassesand the low sweet crooning of baby voices--felt a tiny greedy hand uponher breast, was bewildered with a sudden overwhelming rush ofmother-longing ... young, young? Oh, God, she was young, and in thespringtime with its stirring sap, its call to life and action, its urgeto create, to build, its ringing cry to be up and doing, serving,sowing, tending--the pains of winter forgotten, hope in the warming sun.

  She must live. Even without Martin she must live. She was too young fordeath and sleep and peace. Life called and claimed and demanded. It hadneed of the young for a good spring, a ripe summer, a golden autumn.She must live and work and justify.

  But how?

  There was Gilbert watching the stars with a smile, calmly and quietlyand horribly waiting for her to make a choice, having slipped over onthe other side of the dividing line. A scream of fear and terror roseto her throat. This quiet, exalted man, so gentle and determined, withthe look in his eyes of one who intended to own one way or theother--Live? How was she to live? He had given her a choice betweensomething that was impossible and something that all Nature held herback from. She was locked into a lonely house as far away from help asthough they were out at sea.

  "We hold it deat
h to falter not to die." The words seemed suddenly tostand out in blazing letters over the mantelpiece, as they did inMartin's room--Martin, Martin.... With a mighty effort she wound thereins round her hands and pulled herself up. In this erotic andterrible position she must not falter or show fear or exaggerate thisman's sudden derangement by cries or struggles. He must be humored,kept gentle and quiet, and she must pray for help. God loved youngthings, and if she had forgotten Him until the very moment of greatdanger, He might forgive. She must, with courage and practicality, gaintime so that some one might be sent. The servants might return. HarryOldershaw might have followed them. He hadn't liked the look ofGilbert. He had said so. But if that was too good, there was Martin,Martin...

  She saw herself sitting in a dressing gown on the arm of a chair inMartin's room in the little New York house. She heard Martin come alongthe passage with his characteristic light tread and saw him draw upshort. He looked anxious. "You wanted me?" she heard him say.

  "I did and do, Marty. But how did you guess?"

  "I didn't guess. I knew."

  "Isn't that wonderful? Do you suppose I shall always be able to get youwhen I want you very much?"

  "Yes, always."

  "Why?"

  "I dunno. It's like that. It's something that can't be explained...."

  Gilbert turned and smiled at her. She smiled back. Martin was not faraway, Martin. "How quiet the night is," she said, and went over to awindow. Hope gleamed like a star. And then, with all her strength andurgency she gave a silent cry. "Martin, Martin. I want you, so much,oh, so much. Come to me, quickly, quickly. Martin, Martin."