“Jim, must we do it this way? I don’t mean that I wished for any ostentation — —”
“I did! I would have wished for a ceremony suited to your beauty and — —”
“No, no! I didn’t expect — —”
“But I did — damn it!” he said between his teeth. “I wished it; I expected it. Don’t you think I know what a girl ought to have? Indeed I do, Jacqueline. And in New York town another century will never see a bride to compare with you! But, my darling, I cannot risk it!”
“Risk it?”
“Don’t ask me any more.”
“No.”
“And — will you do it — for my sake?”
“Yes.”
There was a silence between them; he lighted a cigarette, turned coolly around, and glanced across the room. Elena instantly averted her gaze. Mrs. Hammerton sustained his pleasant inspection with an unchanging stare almost insolent.
After a moment he smiled at her. It was a mistake to do it.
After luncheon, Elena Clydesdale found an opportunity for a word with him.
“Will you remember that you have an engagement to-night?” she said in a guarded voice.
“I shall break it,” he replied.
“What!”
“This is going to end here and now! Your business is with your husband. He’s a decent fellow; he’s devoted to you. I won’t even discuss it with you. Break with him if you want to, but don’t count on me!”
“I can’t break with him unless I can count on you. Are you going to lie to me, Jim?”
“You can call it what you like. But if you break with him it will end our friendship.”
“I tell you I’ve got to break with him. I’ve got to do it now — at once!”
“Why?”
“Because — because I’ve got to. I can’t go on fencing with him.”
“Oh!”
She crimsoned and set her little white teeth.
“I’ve got to leave him or be what — I won’t be!”
“Then break with him,” he said contemptuously, “and give a decent man another chance in life!”
“I can’t — unless you — —”
“Good God! I’d sooner cut my throat. My sympathy is for your husband. You’re convicting yourself, I tell you! I’ve always had a dim idea that he was all right. Now I know it — and my obligations to you are ended.”
“Then — you leave me — to him? Answer me, Jim. You refuse to stand between me and my — my degradation? Is that what you mean to do? Knowing I have no other means of escaping it except through you — except by defying the world with you!”
She broke off with a sob.
“Elena,” he said, “your one salvation in this world is to have children! It will mean happiness and honour for you both — mutual respect, and, if not romantic love, at least a cordial understanding and mutual toleration. If you have such a chance, don’t throw it away. Your husband is a slow, intelligent, kind, and patient man, who has borne much from you because he is honestly in love with you. Don’t mistake his consideration for weakness, his patience for acquiescence. What kindness you have pretended to show him recently has given him courage. He is trying to make good because he believes that he can win you. This is clear reason; it is logic, Elena.”
She turned on him in a flash of tears and exasperation.
“Logic! Do you think a woman wants that?” she stammered. “Do you think a woman arrives at any conclusion through the kind of reasoning that satisfies men? What difference does what you say make to me, when I hate him and I love you? How does your logic help me to escape what is — is abhorrent to me! Do you suppose your reasoning makes it more endurable? Oh, Jim! For heaven’s sake don’t leave me to that — that man! Let me come here this evening after he has gone, and try to explain to you how I — —”
“No.”
“You won’t!”
“No. I am going to town with Mrs. Hammerton and Miss Nevers on the evening train. And some day I am going to marry Miss Nevers.”
CHAPTER XII
During her week’s absence from town Jacqueline’s mail had accumulated; a number of business matters had come into the office, the disposal of which now awaited her decision — requests from wealthy connoisseurs for expert opinion, offers to dispose of collections entire or in part, invitations to dealers’ secret conferences, urgent demands for appraisers, questions concerning origin or authenticity, commissions to buy, sell, advertise, or send searchers throughout the markets at home or abroad for anything from a tiny shrine of Limoges enamel to a complete suit of equestrian armour to fill a gap in a series belonging to some rich man’s museum.
On the evening of her arrival at the office, she was beset by her clerks and salesmen, bringing to her hundreds of petty routine details requiring her personal examination. Also, it appeared that one of her clients had been outrageously swindled by a precious pair of fly-by-nights; and the matter required immediate investigation. So she was obliged to telephone to Mrs. Hammerton that she could not dine with her at the Ritz, and to Desboro that she could not see him for a day or two. In Desboro’s case, a postscript added: “Except for a minute, dearest, whenever you come.”
She did not even take the time to dine that evening, but settled down at her office desk as soon as the retail shop below was closed; and, with the tea urn and a rack of toast at her elbow, plunged straight into the delightfully interesting chaos confronting her.
As far as the shop was concerned, the New Year, as usual, had brought to that part of the business a lull in activity. It always happened so after New Years; and the stagnation steadily increased as spring approached, until by summer time the retail business was practically dead.
But a quiet market did not mean that there was nothing for her to do. Warehouse sales must be watched, auctions, public and private, in town and country, must be attended by one or more of her representatives; private clients inclined to sell always required tactful handling and careful consideration; her confidential agents must always be alert.
Also, always her people were continually searching for various objects ardently desired by all species of acquisitive clients; she must keep in constant touch with everything that was happening in her business abroad; she must keep abreast of her times at home, which required much cleverness, intuition, and current reading, and much study in the Museum and among private collections to which she had access. She was a very, very busy girl, almost too busy at moments to remember that she had fallen in love.
That night she worked alone in her office until long after midnight; and all the next day until noon she was busy listening to or instructing salesmen, clerks, dealers, experts, auctioneers, and clients. Also, the swindle and the swindlers were worrying her extremely.
Luncheon had been served on a tray beside her desk, and she was still absent-mindedly going over the carbon files of business letters, which she had dictated and dispatched that morning, when Desboro’s card was brought to her. She sent word that she would receive him.
“Will you lunch with me, Jim?” she asked demurely, when he had appeared and shaken hands vigorously. “I’ve a fruit salad and some perfectly delicious sherbet! Please sit on the desk top and help me consume the banquet.”
“Do you call that a banquet, darling?” he demanded. “Come out to the Ritz with me this instant — —”
“Dearest! I can’t! Oh, you don’t know what an exciting and interesting mess my business affairs are in! A girl always has to pay for her pleasure. But in this case it’s a pleasure to pay. Bring up that chair and share my luncheon like a good fellow, so we can chat together for a few minutes. It’s all the time I can give you to-day, dearest.”
He pulled up a chair and seated himself, experiencing somewhat mixed emotions in the presence of such bewildering business capability.
“You make me feel embarrassed and ashamed,” he said. “Rotten loafer that I am! And you so energetic and industrious — you darling thing!”
“Bu
t, dear, your farmer can’t plow frozen ground, you know; all your men can do just now is to mend fences and dump fertiliser and lime and gypsum over everything. And I believe they were doing that when I left.”
“If,” he said, “I were a real instead of a phony farmer, I’d read catalogues about wire fences; I’d find plenty to do if I were not a wretched sham. It’s only, I hope, because you’re in town that I can’t drive myself back where I belong. I ought to be sitting in a wood-shed, in overalls, whittling sticks and yelling bucolic wisdom at Ezra Vail —— Oh, you needn’t laugh, darling, but that’s where I ought to be, and what I ought to be doing if I’m ever going to support a wife!”
“Jim! You’re not going to support a wife! You absurd boy!”
“What!” he demanded, losing countenance.
“Did you think you were obliged to support me? How ridiculous! I’d be perfectly miserable — —”
“Jacqueline! What on earth do you mean? We are going to live on my income.”
“Indeed we are not! What use would I be to you if I brought you nothing except an idle, useless, lazy girl to support! It’s unthinkable!”
“Do you expect to remain in business?” he asked, incredulously.
“Certainly I expect it!”
“But — darling — —”
“Jim! I love my business. It was father’s business; it represents my childhood, my girlhood, my maturity. Every detail of it is inextricably linked with memories of him — the dearest memories, the tenderest associations of my life! Do you wish me to give them up?”
“How can you be my wife, Jacqueline, and still remain a business woman?”
“Dear, I am certainly going to marry you. Permit me to arrange the rest. It will not interfere with my being your devoted and happy wife. It wouldn’t ever interfere with — with my being a — a perfectly good mother — if that’s what you fear. If it did, do you suppose I’d hesitate to choose?”
“No,” he said, adoring her.
“Indeed, I wouldn’t! But remaining in business will give me what every girl should have as a right — an object in life apart from her love for her husband — and children — apart from her proper domestic duties. It is her right to engage in the business of life; it makes the contract between you and me fairer. I love you more than anything in the world, but I simply couldn’t keep my self-respect and depend on you for everything I have.”
“But, my darling, everything I have is already yours.”
“Yes, I know. We can pretend it is. I know I could have it — just as you could have this rather complicated business of mine — if you want it.”
“Oh, Lord!” he exclaimed. “Imagine the fury of a connoisseur who engaged me to identify his priceless penates!”
He was laughing, too, now. They had finished their fruit salad and sherbet; she lighted a cigarette for him, taking a dainty puff and handing it to him with an adorable shudder.
“I don’t like it! I don’t like any vices! How women can enjoy what men enjoy is a mystery to me. Smoke slowly, darling, because when that cigarette is finished you must make a very graceful bow and say good-bye to me until to-morrow.”
“This is simply devilish, Jacqueline! I never see you any more.”
“Nonsense! You have plenty to do to amuse you — haven’t you, dear?”
But the things that once occupied his leisure so casually and so agreeably no longer attracted him.
“I don’t want to read seed catalogues,” he protested. “Couldn’t I be of use to you, Jacqueline? I’ll do anything you say — take off my coat and sweep out your office, or go behind the counter in the shop and sell gilded gods — —”
“Imagine the elegant Mr. Desboro selling antiquities to the dangerous monomaniacs who haunt such shops as mine! Dear, they’d either drive you crazy or have you arrested for fraud inside of ten minutes. No; you will make a perfectly good husband, Jim, but you were never created to decorate an antique shop.”
He tried to smile, but only flushed rather painfully. A sudden and wholly inexplicable sense of inferiority possessed him.
“You know,” he said, “I’m not going to stand around idle while you run a prosperous business concern. And anyway, I can’t see it, Jacqueline. You and I are going to have a lot of social obligations to — —”
“We are likely to have all kinds of obligations,” she interrupted serenely, “and our lives are certain to be very full, and you and I are going to be equal to every opportunity, every demand, every responsibility — and still have leisure to love each other, and to be to each other everything that either could desire.”
“After all,” he said, serious and unconvinced, “there are only twenty-four hours in a day for us to be together.”
“Yes, darling, but there will be no wasted time in those twenty-four hours. That is where we save a sufficient number of minutes to attend to the business of life.”
“Do you mean that you intend to come into this office every day?”
“For a while, yes. Less frequently when I have trained my people a little longer. What do you suppose my father was doing all his life? What do you suppose I have been doing these last three years? Why, Jim, except that hitherto I have loved to fuss over details, this office and this business could almost run itself for six months at a time. Some day, except for special clients here and there, Lionel Sissly will do what expert work I now am doing; and this desk will be his; and his present position will be filled by Mr. Mirk. That is how it is planned. And if you had given me two or three months, I might have been able to go on a bridal trip with you!”
“We are going, aren’t we?” he asked, appalled.
“If I’ve got to marry you offhand,” she said seriously, “our wedding trip will have to wait. Don’t you know, dear, that it always costs heavily to do anything in a hurry? At this time of year, and under the present conditions of business, and considering my contracts and obligations, it would be utterly impossible for me to go away again until summer.”
He sprang up irritated, yet feeling utterly helpless under her friendly but level gaze. Already he began to realise the true significance of her position and his own in the world; how utterly at a moral disadvantage he stood before this young girl — moral, intellectual, spiritual — he was beginning to comprehend it all now.
A dull flush of anger made his face hot and altered his expression to sullenness. Where was all this leading them, anyway — this reversal of rôles, this self-dependent attitude of hers — this calm self-reliance — this freedom of decision?
Once he had supposed there was something in her to protect, to guide, advise, make allowance for — perhaps to persuade, possibly, even, to instruct. Such has been the immemorial attitude of man; it had been instinctively, and more or less unconsciously, his.
And now, in spite of her youth, her soft pliability, her almost childish grace and beauty, he was experiencing a half-dazed sensation as though, in full and confident career, he had come, slap! into collision with an occult barrier. And the impact was confusing him and even beginning to hurt him.
He looked around him uneasily. Everything in the office, somehow, seemed to be in subtle league with her to irritate him — her desk, her loaded letter-files, her stacks of ledgers — all these accused and offended him. But most of all his own helpless inferiority made him angry and ashamed — the inferiority of idleness confronted by industry; of aimlessness face to face with purpose; of irresolution and degeneracy scrutinised by fearlessness, confidence, and happy and innocent aspiration. And the combination silenced him.
And every mute second that he stood there, he felt as though something imperceptible, intangible, was slipping away from him — perhaps his man’s immemorial right to lead, to decide, to direct the common destiny of this slim, sweet-lipped young girl and himself.
For it was she who was serenely deciding — who had already laid out the business of life for herself without hesitation, without resort to him, to his man’s wisdom, experience, prejudices,
wishes, desires. Moreover, she was leaving him absolutely free to decide his own business in life for himself; and that made her position unassailable. For if she had presumed to advise him, to suggest, even hint at anything interfering with his own personal liberty to decide for himself, he might have found some foothold, some niche, something to sustain him, to justify him, in assuming man’s immemorial right to leadership.
“Dear,” she said wistfully, “you look at me with such very troubled eyes. Is there anything I have said that you disapprove?”
“I had not expected you to remain in business,” was all he found to say.
“If my remaining in business ever interferes with your happiness or with my duty to you, I will give it up. You know that, don’t you?”
He reddened again.
“It looks queer,” he muttered, “ — your being in business and I — playing farmer — like one of those loafing husbands of celebrated actresses.”
“Jim!” she exclaimed, scarlet to the ears. “What a horrid simile!”
“It’s myself I’m cursing out,” he said, almost angrily. “I can’t cut such a figure. Don’t you understand, Jacqueline? I haven’t anything to occupy me! Do you expect me to hang around somewhere while you work? I tell you, I’ve got to find something to do as soon as we’re married — or I couldn’t look you in the face.”
“That is for you to decide. Isn’t it?” she asked sweetly.
“Yes, but on what am I to decide?”
“Whatever you decide, don’t do it in a hurry, dear,” she said, smiling.
The sullen sense of resentment returned, reddening his face again:
“I wouldn’t have to hurry if you’d give up this business and live on our income and be free to travel and knock about with me — —”
“Can’t you understand that I will be free to be with you — free in mind, in conscience, in body, to travel with you, be with you, be to you whatever you desire — but only if I keep my self-respect! And I can’t keep that if I neglect the business of life, which, in my case, lies partly here in this office.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 655