To a man of a naturally melancholic and brooding temper, as John Ralston was, illusions have a very great value. Such men have few of them, as a rule, and regard them as possessions with which no one has any right to interfere. They ask little or nothing of the world at large, except to be allowed to follow their own inclinations and worship their own idols in their own way. But of their idols they ask much, and often give them little in return except acts of idolatry. And the first thing they ask, whether they express the demand openly or not, is that their idols should believe in them in spite of every one and everything. They are not, as a rule, capricious men. They cannot replace one object of adoration by another, at short notice. Perhaps the foundation of such characters is a sort of honourable selfishness, a desire to keep what they care for to themselves, beyond the reach of every one else, together with an inward conviction that their love is eminently worth having from the mere fact that they do not bestow it lightly. When the idol expresses a human and pardonable doubt in their sincerity, an illusion is injured, if not destroyed — even when that doubt is well founded. But when the doubt is groundless, it makes a bad wound which leaves an ugly scar, if it ever heals at all.
John Ralston was very like his mother, and she knew it and understood instinctively that words could be of no use. There was nothing to be done but to throw herself upon his mercy, as it were, and to trust that he would forgive an injury which nothing could repair. And John understood this, and did his best to meet her half way, for he loved her very much. But he could not help the expression on his face, not being good at masking nor at playing any part. She, womanly, could have done that better than he.
She wished to act no comedy, however. The thing was real and true, and she was distressed beyond measure. She looked up at his face and saw what was in his mind, and she knew that for the present she could do nothing. Then she gently kissed the sleeve of his coat, and withdrew her hands from him.
“You’re wet, Jack,” she said, trying to speak naturally. “Go to bed, and I’ll bring you something to eat and something hot to drink.”
“No, mother — thank you. I don’t want anything. But I think I’ll go to bed. Good night.”
“Let me bring you something—”
“No, thank you. I’d rather not. It’s all right, mother. Don’t worry.”
It was hard to say even that little, just then, but he did as well as he could. Then he kissed her on the forehead and opened the door for her. She bent her head low as she passed him, but she did not look up.
Half an hour later, when John was about to put out his light, he heard the little clinking of glasses and silver on a tray outside his door. Then there was a knock.
“I’ve brought you something to eat, Jack,” said his mother’s voice. “Just what I could find—”
John turned as he was crossing the room — a gaunt figure in his loose, striped flannels — and hesitated a moment before he spoke.
“Oh — thank you, very much,” he answered. “Would you kindly set it down? I’ll take it in presently. It’s very good of you, mother — thank you — good night again.”
He heard her set down the tray, and the things rattled and clinked.
“It’s here, when you want it,” said the voice.
He fancied there was a sigh after the words, and two or three seconds passed before the sound of softly departing footsteps followed. He listened, with a weary look in his eyes, then went to the fireplace and leaned against the mantelpiece for a moment. As though making an effort, he turned again and went to the door and opened it and brought in the tray. There were dainty things on it, daintily arranged. There was also a small decanter of whiskey, a pint of claret and a little jug of hot water. John set the tray upon one end of his writing table and looked at it, with an odd, sour smile. He was really so tired that he wanted neither food nor drink, and the sight of both in abundance was almost nauseous to him. He reflected that the servant would take away the things in the morning, and that his mother would never know whether he had taken what she had brought him or not, unless she asked him, which was impossible. He took up the tray again, set it down on the floor, in a corner, and instead of going to bed seated himself at his writing table.
It seemed best to write to Katharine and send his letter early in the morning. It was hard work, and he could scarcely see the words he wrote, for the pain in his head was becoming excruciating. It was necessarily a long letter, too, and a complicated one, and his command of the English language seemed gone from him. Nevertheless, he plodded on diligently, telling as nearly as he could remember what had happened to him since he had left Katharine’s door at three o’clock in the afternoon, up to the moment when Doctor Routh had pronounced his verdict. It was not well written, but on the whole it was a thoroughly clear account of events, so far as he himself could be said to know what had happened to him. He addressed the letter and put a special delivery stamp upon it, thinking that this would be a means of sending it to its destination quickly without attracting so much attention to it as though he should send a messenger himself. Then he put out the gas, drew up the shades, so that the morning light should wake him early, in spite of his exhaustion, and at last went to bed.
It was unfortunate that the messenger who took the specially stamped letter to Clinton Place on the following morning should have rung the bell exactly when he did, that is to say, at the precise moment when Alexander Junior was putting on his overcoat and overshoes in the entry. It was natural enough that Mr. Lauderdale should open the door himself and confront the boy, who held up the letter to him with the little book in which the receipt was to be signed. It was the worse for the boy, because Katharine would have given him five or ten cents for himself, whereas Alexander Junior signed the receipt, handed it back and shut the door in the boy’s face. And it was very much the worse for John Ralston, since Mr. Lauderdale, having looked at the handwriting and recognized it, put the letter into his pocket without a word to any one and went down town for the day.
Now it was his intention to do the thing which was right according to his point of view. He was as honourable a man, in his own unprejudiced opinion, as any living, and he would no more have forfeited his right to congratulate himself upon his uprightness than he would have given ten cents to the messenger boy, or a holiday to a clerk, or a subscription for anything except his pew in church. The latter was really a subscription to his own character, and therefore not an extravagance. It would never have entered into his mind that he could possibly break the seal of Ralston’s specially stamped envelope. The letter was as safe in his pocket as though it had been put away in his own box at the Safe Deposit — where there were so many curious things of which no one but Alexander Junior knew anything. But he did not intend that his daughter should ever read it either. He disapproved of John from the very bottom of his heart, partly because he did, which was an excellent reason, partly because there could be no question as to John’s mode of life, and partly because he had once lost his temper when John had managed to keep his own. So far as he allowed himself to swear, he had sworn that John should never marry Katharine — unless, indeed, John should inherit a much larger share of Robert Lauderdale’s money than was just, in which case justice itself would make it right to enter into a matrimonial alliance with the millions. Meanwhile, however, Robert the Rich was an exceedingly healthy old man.
Under present circumstances, therefore, if accident threw into his hands one of Ralston’s letters to Katharine, it was clearly the duty of such a perfectly upright and well-conducted father as Alexander Junior to hinder it from reaching its destination. Only one question as to his conduct presented itself to his mind, and he occupied the day in solving it. Should he quietly destroy the letter and say nothing about it to any one, or should he tell Katharine that he had it, and burn it in her presence after showing her that it was unopened? His conscience played an important part in his life, though Robert Lauderdale secretly believed that he had none at all; and his conscience bad
e him be quite frank about what he had done, and destroy the letter under Katharine’s own eyes. He took it from his pocket as he sat in his brilliantly polished chair before his shiny table, under the vivid snow-glare which fell upon him through his magnificent plate-glass windows. He looked at it again, turned it over thoughtfully, and returned it at last to his pocket, where it remained until he came home late in the afternoon. While he sipped his glass of iced water at luncheon time, he prepared a little speech, which he repeated to himself several times in the course of the day.
In the meantime Katharine, not suspecting that John had written to her, and of course utterly ignorant of the truth about his doings on the preceding day, felt that she must find some occupation, no matter how trivial, to take her mind out of the strong current of painful thought which must at last draw her down into the very vortex of despair’s own whirlpool. It seemed to her that she had never before even faintly guessed the meaning of pain nor the unknown extent of possible mental suffering. As for forming any resolution, or even distinguishing the direction of her probable course in the immediate future, she was utterly incapable of any such effort or thought. The longing for total annihilation was perhaps uppermost among her instincts just then, as it often is with men and women who have been at once bitterly disappointed and deeply wounded, and who find themselves in a position from which no escape seems possible. Katharine wished with all her young heart that the world were a lighted candle and that she could blow it out.
It must not be believed, however, that her love for John Ralston had disappeared as suddenly and totally as she should have liked to extinguish the universe. It had not been of sudden growth nor of capricious blooming. Its roots were deep, its stem was strong, its flowers were sweet — and the blight which had fallen upon it was the more cruel. A frostbitten rose-tree is a sadder sight than a withered mushroom or a blade of dried grass. It was real, honest, unsuspecting, strong, maidenly love, and it stood there still in the midst of her heart, hanging its head in the cold, while she gazed at it and wondered, and choked with anguish. But she could not lift her hand to prop it, nor to cover it and warm it again, still less to root it up and burn it.
She could only try to escape from seeing it, and she resolutely set about making the attempt. She left her room and went downstairs, treading more softly as she passed the door of the room in which her mother worked during the morning hours. She did not wish to see her again at present, and as she descended she could not help thinking with wonder of the sudden and unaccountable change in their relations.
She entered the library, but though it was warm, it had that chilly look about it which rooms principally used in the evening generally have when there is no fire in them. The snow-glare was on everything, too, and made it worse. She stood a moment in hesitation before the writing table, and laid her hand uncertainly upon a sheet of writing paper. But she realized that she could not write to John, and she turned away almost immediately.
What could she have written? It was easy to talk to herself of a letter; it was quite another matter to find words, or even to discover the meaning of her own thoughts. She did not wish to see him. If she wished anything, it was that she might never see him again. Nothing could have been much worse than to meet him just then, and talking on paper was next to talking in fact. It all rushed back upon her as she moved away, and she paused a moment and steadied herself against her favourite chair by the empty fireplace. Then she raised her head again, proudly, and left the room, looking straight before her.
There was nothing to be done but to go out. The loneliness of the house was absolutely intolerable, and she could not wander about in such an aimless fashion all day long. Again she went upstairs to her room to put on her hat and things. Mechanically she took the hat she had worn on the previous day, but as she stood before the mirror and caught sight of it, she suddenly took it from her head again and threw it behind her with a passionate gesture, stared at herself a moment and then buried her face in her hands. She had unconsciously put on the same frock as yesterday — the frock in which she had been married — it was the rough grey woollen one she had been wearing every day. And there were the same simple little ornaments, the small silver pin at her throat, the tiny gold bar of her thin watch chain at the third button from the top — the hat had made it complete — just as she had been married. She could not bear that.
A few moments later she rose, and without looking at herself in the glass, began to change her clothes. She dressed herself entirely in black, put on a black hat and a gold pin, and took a new pair of brown gloves from a drawer. There was a relief, now, in her altered appearance, as she fastened her veil. She felt that she could behave differently if she could get rid of the outward things which reminded her of yesterday. It is not wise to reflect contemptuously upon the smallness of things which influence passionate people at great moments in their lives. It needs less to send a fast express off the track, if the obstacle be just so placed as to cause an accident, than it does to upset a freight train going at twelve miles an hour.
Katharine descended the stairs again with a firm step, holding her head higher than before, and with quite a different look in her eyes. She had put on a sort of shell with her black clothes. It seemed to conceal her real self from the outer world, the self that had worn rough grey woollen and a silver pin and had been married to John Ralston yesterday morning. She did not even take the trouble to tread softly as she passed her mother’s studio, for she felt able to face any one, all at once. If John himself had been standing in the entry below, and if she had come upon him suddenly, she should have known how to meet him, and what to say. She would have hurt him, and she would have been glad of it, with all of her. What right had John Ralston to ruin her life?
But John was not there, nor was there any possibility of her meeting him that morning. He had shut himself up in his room and was waiting for her answer to the letter which Alexander Lauderdale had taken down town in his pocket, and which he meant to burn before her eyes that evening after delivering his little speech. It was not probable that John would go out of the house until he was convinced that no answer was to be expected.
Katharine went out into the street and paused on the last step. The snow was deep everywhere, and wet and clinging. No attempt had as yet been made to clear it away, though the horse-cars had ploughed their black channel through, and it had been shovelled off the pavements before some of the houses. There was a slushy muddiness about it where it was not still white, which promised ill for a walk. Katharine knew exactly what Washington Square would be like on such a morning. The little birds would all be draggled and cold, the leafless twigs would be dripping, the paths would be impracticable, and all the American boys would be snowballing the Italian and French boys from South Fifth Avenue. The University Building would look more than usual like a sepulchre to let, and Waverley Place would be more savagely respectable than ever, as its quiet red brick houses fronted the snow. Overhead the sky was of a uniform grey. It was impossible to tell from any increase of light where the sun ought to be. The air was damp and cold, and all the noises of the street were muffled. Far away and out of sight, a hand-organ was playing ‘Ah quell’ amore ond’ardo’ — an air which Katharine most especially and heartily detested. There was something ghostly in the sound, as though the wretched instrument were grinding itself to death out of sheer weariness. Katharine thought that if the world were making music in its orbit that morning, the noise must be as melancholy and as jarring as that of the miserable hurdy-gurdy. She thought vaguely, too, of the poor old man who has stood every day for years with his back to the railings on the south side of West Fourteenth Street, before you come to Sixth Avenue, feebly turning the handle of a little box which seems to be full of broken strings, which something stirs up into a scarcely audible jangle at every sixth or seventh revolution. He has yellowish grey hair, long and thick, and is generally bareheaded. She felt inclined to go and see whether he were there now, in the wet snow, with his tor
n shoes and his blind eyes, that could not feel the glare. She found herself thinking of all the many familiar figures of distress, just below the surface of the golden stream as it were, looking up out of it with pitiful appealing faces, and without which New York could not be itself. Her father said they made a good living out of their starving appearance, and firmly refused to encourage what he called pauperism by what other people called charity. Even if they were really poor, he said, they probably deserved to be, and were only reaping the fruit of their own improvidence, a deduction which did not appeal to Katharine.
She turned eastwards and would have walked up to Fourteenth Street in order to give the hurdy-gurdy beggar something, had she not remembered almost immediately that she had no money with her. She never had any except what her mother gave her for her small expenses, and during the last few days she had not cared to ask for any. In very economically conducted families the reluctance to ask for small sums is generally either the sign of a quarrel or the highest expression of sympathetic consideration. Every family has its private barometer in which money takes the place of mercury.
Katharine suddenly remembered that she had promised Crowdie another sitting at eleven o’clock on Friday. It was the day and it was the hour, and though by no means sure that she would enter the house when she reached Lafayette Place, she turned in that direction and walked on, picking her way across the streets as well as she could. The last time she had gone to Crowdie’s she had gone with John, who had left her at the door in order to go in search of a clergyman. She remembered that, as she went along, and she chose the side of the street opposite to the one on which she had gone with Ralston.
At the door of Crowdie’s house, she hesitated again. Crowdie was one of the gossips. It was he who had told the story of John’s quarrel with Bright. It seemed as though he must be more repulsive to her than ever. On the other hand, she realized that if she failed to appear as she had promised, he would naturally connect her absence with what had happened to Ralston. He could hardly be blamed for that, she thought, but she would not have such a story repeated if she could help it. She felt very brave, and very unlike the Katharine Lauderdale of two hours earlier, and after a moment’s thought, she rang the bell and was admitted immediately.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 689