His Family

by Ernest Poole

  “Where’s Hal this evening?” And she answered lightly,

  “Oh, don’t ask me what he does with himself.”

  “You mean, I suppose,” said Edith, with quiet disapproval, “that he is rushed to death this year with all this business from the war.”

  “Yes, it’s business,” Laura replied, as she deftly smoothed and patted her soft, abundant, reddish hair. “And it’s war, too,” she added.

  “What do you mean?” her father asked. He knew what she meant, war with her husband. But before Laura could answer him, Edith cut in hastily, for two of her children were present. At dinner she turned the talk to the war. But even on this topic, Laura’s remarks were disturbing. She did not consider the war wholly bad—by no means, it had many good points. It was clearing away a lot of old rubbish, customs, superstitions and institutions out of date. “Musty old relics,” she called them. She spoke as though repeating what someone else had told her. Laura with her chicken’s mind could never have thought it all out by herself. When asked what she meant, she was smilingly vague, with a glance at Edith’s youngsters. But she threw out hints about the church and even Christianity, as though it were falling to pieces. She spoke of a second Renaissance, “a glorious pagan era” coming. And then she exploded a little bomb by inquiring of Edith.

  “What do you think the girls over there are going to do for husbands, with half the marriageable men either killed or hopelessly damaged? They’re not going to be nuns all their lives!”

  Again her sister cut her off, and the rest of the brief evening was decidedly awkward. Yes, she was changing, growing fast. And Roger did not like it. Here she was spending money like water, absorbed in her pleasures, having no baby, apparently at loose ends with her husband, and through it all so cocksure of herself and her outrageous views about war, and smiling about them with such an air, and in her whole manner, such a tone of amused superiority. She talked about a world for the strong, bits of gabble from Nietzsche and that sort of rot; she spoke blithely of a Rome reborn, the “Wings of the Eagles” heard again. This part of it she had taken, no doubt, from her new Italian friend, her husband’s shrapnel partner.

  Pshaw! What was Laura up to?

  But that was only one evening. It was not repeated, another month went quickly by, and Roger had soon shaken it from him, for he had troubles enough at home. One daughter at a time, he had thought. And as the dark clouds close above him had cleared, the other cloud too had drifted away, until it was small, just on the horizon, far away from Roger’s house. What was Laura up to? He barely ever thought of that now.

  * * * * *

  But one night when he came home, Edith, who sat in the living room reading aloud to her smaller boys, gave him a significant look which warned him something had happened. And turning to take off his overcoat, in the hall he almost stumbled upon a pile of hand luggage, two smart patent leather bags, a hat trunk and a sable cloak.

  “Hello,” he exclaimed. “What’s this? Who’s here?”

  “Laura,” Edith answered. “She’s up in Deborah’s room, I think—they’ve been up there for over an hour.” Roger looked indignantly in at his daughter.

  “What has happened?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Edith replied. “They didn’t seem to need me. They made it rather plain, in fact. Another quarrel, I presume. She came into the house like a whirlwind, asked at once for Deborah and flew up to Deborah’s room.”

  “Pshaw!” Roger heavily mounted the stairs. He at least did not feel like flying. A whirlwind, eh—a nice evening ahead!

  * * * * *

  Meanwhile, in her room upstairs Deborah sat motionless, sternly holding her feelings down, while in a tone now kindly but more often full of a sharp dismay, she threw out question after question to Laura who was walking the floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.

  “No, this time it’s divorce!” she declared, at the end of her first outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband’s double life. “I’ve stood it long enough! I’m through!”

  “You mean you don’t care for him,” Deborah said. She was fighting for time to think it out. “You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear—but how do you think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state. They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?”

  “No, I haven’t—but I don’t need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do! Wait—I’ll give you his very words!” Laura’s face grew white with fury. “‘It’s entirely up to you, Sweetie’—the beast!—’You can have any kind of divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the reporters and tell them all about yourself!’”

  “_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?” Deborah’s voice was loud and harsh. “For God’s sake, Laura, what do you mean?”

  “Mean? I mean that he has proofs! He has used a detective, the mean little cur, and he’s treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as though it were one thing for a man, and another—quite—for a woman! He even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn me!—turn me out on the street!” Deborah winced as though from a blow. “Oh, it was funny, funny!” Laura was almost sobbing now.

  “Stop, this minute!” Deborah said. “You say that you’ve been doing—what he has?” she demanded.

  “Why shouldn’t I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against me, too?”

  “I am—pretty nearly—”

  “Oh, good God!” Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.

  “Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain.”

  “Explain—to you? How can I? You don’t understand—you know nothing about it—all you know about is schools! You’re simply a nun when it comes to this. I see it now—I didn’t before—I thought you a modern woman—with your mind open to new ideas. But it isn’t, it seems, when it comes to a pinch—it’s shut as tight as Edith’s is—”

  “Yes, tight!”

  “Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me alone! I’ll have a talk with father!”

  “You will not have a talk with father—”

  “I most certainly will—and he’ll understand! He’s a man, at least—and he led a man’s life before he was married!”

  “Laura!”

  ”You can’t see it in him—but I can!”

  “You’ll say not a word to him, not one word! He has had enough this year as it is!”

  “Has he? Then I’m sorry! If you were any help to me—instead of acting like a nun—”

  “Will you please stop talking like a fool?”

  “I’m not! I’m speaking the truth and you know it! You know no more about love like mine than a nun of the middle ages! You needn’t tell me about Allan Baird. You think you’re in love with him, don’t you? Well then, I’ll tell you that you’re not—your love is the kind that can wait for years—because it’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold—it’s all in your mind and your reason! And so I say you’re no help to me now! Here—look at yourself in the glass over there! You’re just plain angry—frightened!”

  “Yes—I am—I’m frightened.” While she strove to think clearly, to form some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on:

  “I know you are! And you can’t be fair! You’re like nearly all American women—married or single, young or old—you’re all of you scared to death about sex—just as your Puritan mothers were! And you leave it alone—you keep it down—you never give it a chance—you’re afraid! But I’m not afraid—and I’m living my life! And let me tell you I’m not alone! There are hundreds and thousands doing the same—right here in New York City to-night! It’s been so abroad for years and years—in Rome and Berlin, in Paris and London—and now, thank God, it has come over here! If our husbands can do it, why can’t we? And we are—we’re starting
—it’s come with the war! You think war is hell and nothing else, don’t you—but you’re wrong! It’s not only killing men—it’s killing a lot of hypocrisies too—it’s giving a jolt to marriage! You’ll see what the women will do soon enough—when there aren’t enough men any longer—”

  “Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you’ve done,” Deborah interrupted. A simple course of action had just flashed into her mind.

  “All right, I will. I’m not ashamed. I’ve given you this ‘tirade’ to show you exactly how I feel—that it’s not any question of sin or guilt or any musty old rubbish like that! I know I’m right! I know just what I’m doing!”

  “Who’s the man? That Italian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Right here in New York.”

  “Does he mean to stand by you?”

  “Of course he does.”

  “Will he marry you, Laura?”

  “Yes, he will—the minute I’m free from my beast of a husband!”

  “And your husband will keep his suit quiet, you said, if you agree not to fight him.”

  “Yes.”

  Deborah rose abruptly.

  “Then will you stay right here to-night, and leave this matter to me?” she asked.

  “What do you mean to do?”

  “See your husband.”

  “What for? When?”

  “To-night, if I can. I want to be sure.”

  Laura looked for the moment nonplussed.

  “And what of my wishes?” she inquired.

  ”Your wishes,” said Deborah steadily. “You want a divorce, don’t you—so do I. And you want it quiet—and so do I. I want it so hard that I want to make sure.” Deborah’s tone was kinder now, and she came over close to her sister. “Look here, Laura, if I’ve been hard, forgive me—please—and let me help. I’m not so narrow as you think. I’ve been through a good deal of this before—downtown, I mean, with girls in my school. They come to me, we have long talks. Maybe I am a nun—as you say—but I’m one with a confessional. Not for sins,” she added, as Laura looked up angrily. “Sins don’t interest me very much. But troubles do. And heaven knows that marriage is one,” she said with a curious bitterness. “And when it has failed and there’s no love left—as in your case—I’m for divorce. Only—” her wide sensitive lips quivered just a little, “I’m sorry it had to come like this. But I love you, dear, and I want to help, I want to see you safely through. And while I’m doing it, if we can, I want to keep dad out of it—at least until it’s settled.” She paused a moment. “So if you agree, I’ll go to your husband. I want to be sure, absolutely, just what we can count on. And until I come back, stay here in my room. You don’t want to talk to father and Edith—”

  “Most certainly not!” Laura muttered.

  “Good. Then stay here until I return. I’ll send you up some supper.”

  “I don’t want any, thank you.”

  Laura went and threw herself on the bed, while her sister finished dressing.

  “It’s decent of you, Deborah.” Her voice was muffled and relaxed. “I wasn’t fair,” she added. “I’m sorry for some of the things I said.”

  “About me and marriage?” Deborah looked at herself in the glass in a peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features. “I’m not sure but that you were right. At times I feel far from certain,” she said. Laura lifted her head from the pillow, watched her sister a moment, dropped back.

  “Don’t let this affect you, Deborah.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, dearie.” And Deborah moved toward the door. “My affair is just mine, you see, and this won’t make any difference.”

  But in her heart she knew it would. What an utter loathing she had to-night for all that people meant by sex! Suddenly she was quivering, her limbs and her whole body hot.

  “You say I’m cold,” she was thinking. “Cold toward Allan, calm and cool, nothing but mind and reason! You say it means little to me, all that! But if I had had trouble with Allan, would I have come running home to talk? Wouldn’t I have hugged it tight? And isn’t that love? What do you know of me and the life I’ve led? Do you know how it feels to want to work, to be something yourself, without any man? And can’t that be a passion? Have you had to live with Edith here and see what motherhood can be, what it can do to a woman? And now you come with another side, just as narrow as hers, devouring everything else in sight! And because I’m a little afraid of that, for myself and all I want to do, you say I don’t know what love is! But I do! And my love’s worth more than yours! It’s deeper, richer, it will last!… Then why do I loathe it all to-night?… But I don’t, I only loathe your side!… But yours is the very heart of it!… All right, then what am I going to do?”

  She was going slowly down the stairs. She stopped for a moment, frowning.

  CHAPTER XXXII

  On the floor below she met her father, who was coming out of his room. He looked at her keenly:

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “Laura’s here,” she answered. “Trouble again with her husband. Better leave her alone for the present—she’s going to stay in my room for a while.”

  “Very well,” her father grunted, and they went down to dinner. There Deborah was silent, and Edith did most of the talking. Edith, quite aware of the fact that Laura and all Laura’s ways were in disgrace for the moment, and that she and her ways with her children shone by the comparison, was bright and sweet and tactful. Roger glanced at her more than once, with approval and with gratitude for the effort she was making to smooth over the situation. Deborah rose before they had finished.

  “Where are you off to?” Roger asked.

  “Oh, there’s something I have to attend to—”

  “School again this evening, dear?” inquired Edith cheerfully, but her sister was already out of the room. She looked at her father with quiet concern. “I’m sorry she has to be out to-night—to-night of all nights,” she murmured.

  “Humph!” ejaculated her father. This eternal school business of Deborah’s was beginning to get on his nerves. Yes, just a little on his nerves! Why couldn’t she give up one evening, just one, and get Laura out of this snarl she was in? He heard her at the telephone, and presently she came back to them.

  “Oh, Edith,” she said casually, “don’t send any supper up to Laura. She says she doesn’t want any to-night. And ask Hannah to put a cot in my room. Will you?”

  “Yes, dear, I’ll attend to it.”

  “Thanks.” And again she left them. In silence, when the front door closed, Edith looked at her father. This must be rather serious, Roger thought excitedly. So Laura was to stay all night, while Deborah gallivanted off to those infernal schools of hers! He had little joy in his paper that night. The news of the world had such a trick of suddenly receding a million miles away from a man the minute he was in trouble. And Roger was in trouble. With each slow tick of the clock in the hall he grew more certain and more disturbed. An hour passed. The clock struck nine. With a snort he tossed his paper aside.

  “Well, Edith,” he said glumly, “how about some chess this evening?” In answer she gave him a quick smile of understanding and sympathy.

  “All right, father dear.” And she fetched the board. But they had played only a short time when Deborah’s latchkey was heard in the door. Roger gave an angry hitch to his chair. Soon she appeared in the doorway.

  “May I talk to you, father?” she asked.

  “I suppose so.” Roger scowled.

  “You’ll excuse us, Edith?” she added.

  “Oh, assuredly, dear.” And Edith rose, looking very much hurt. “Of course, if I’m not needed—”

  At this her father scowled again. Why couldn’t Deborah show her sister a little consideration?

  “What is it?” he demanded.

  “Suppose we go into the study,” she said.

  He followed her there and shut the door.

  * * * * *

  �
�Well?” he asked, from his big leather chair. Deborah had remained standing.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” she began.

  “What is it?” he snapped. “School burnt down?” Savagely he bit off a cigar.

  “I’ve just had a talk with Harold,” she told him. He shot a glance of surprise and dismay.

  “Have, eh—what’s it all about?”

  “It’s about a divorce,” she answered.

  The lighted match dropped from Roger’s hand. He snatched it up before it was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a vigilant way again he eyed his daughter.

  “I’ve done what I could,” she said painfully, “but they seem to have made up their minds.”

  “Then they’ll unmake ‘em,” he replied, and he leaned forward heavily. “They’ll unmake ‘em,” he repeated, in a thick unnatural tone. “I’m not a’goin’ to hear to it!” In a curious manner his voice had changed. It sounded like that of a man in the mountains, where he had been born and raised. This thought flashed into Deborah’s mind and her wide resolute mouth set hard. It would be very difficult.

  “I’m afraid this won’t do, father dear. Whether you give your consent or not—”

  “Wun’t, wun’t it! You wait and see if it wun’t!” Deborah came close to him.

  “Suppose you wait till you understand,” she admonished sternly.

  “All right, I’m waiting,” he replied. She felt herself trembling deep inside. She did not want him to understand, any more than she must to induce him to keep out of this affair.

  “To begin with,” she said steadily, “you will soon see yourself, I think, that they fairly loathe the sight of each other—that there is no real marriage left.”

  “That’s fiddlesticks!” snapped Roger. “Just modern talk and new ideas—ideas you’re to blame for! Yes, you are—you put ‘em in her head—you and your gabble about woman’s rights!” He was angry now. He was glad he was angry. He’d just begun!

  “If you want me to leave her alone,” his daughter cut in sharply, “just say so! I’ll leave it all to you!” And she saw him flinch a little. “What would be your idea?” she asked.