She rose and laid one slim, pretty hand on his shoulder. She rarely permitted herself to touch him voluntarily.
“Don’t you wish me to be happy?” she asked gently.
“It’s all I wish in the world, Jacqueline.”
“But I couldn’t be happy and remain idle; remain dependent on you for anything — except love. Life to the full — every moment filled — that is what living means to me. And only one single thing never can fill one’s life — not intellectual research alone; not spiritual remoteness; nor yet the pursuit of pleasure; nor the swift and endless hunt for happiness; nor even love, dearest among men! Only the business of life can quite fill life to the brimming for me; and that business is made up of everything worthy — of the pleasures of effort, duty, aspiration, and noble repose, but never of the pleasures of idleness. Jim, have I bored you with a sermon? Forgive me; I am preaching only to instruct myself.”
He took her hand from his shoulder and stood holding it and looking at her with a strange expression. So dazed, yet so terribly intent he seemed at moments that she laid her other hand over his, pressing it in smiling anxiety.
“What is it, dearest?” she murmured. “Don’t you approve of me as much as you thought you did? Am I disappointing you already?”
“Good God!” he muttered to himself. “If there is a heaven, and your sort inhabit it, hell was reformed long ago.”
“What are you muttering all to yourself, Jim?” she insisted. “What troubles you?”
“I’ll tell you. You’ve picked the wrong man. I’m absolutely unfit for you. I know about all those decent things you believe in — all the things you are! But I don’t know about them from personal experience; I never did anything decent because it was my duty to do it — except by accident. I never took a spiritual interest in anything or anybody, including myself! I never made a worthy effort; I never earned one second’s worth of noble repose. And now — if there’s anything in me to begin on — it’s probably my duty to release you until I have made something of myself, before I come whining around asking you to marry a man not fit to marry — —”
“My darling!” she protested, half laughing, half in tears, and closing his angry lips with both her hands. “I want you, not a saint or a holy man, or an archangel fresh from paradise! I want you as you are — as you have been — as you are going to be dear! Did any girl who ever lived find pleasure in perfection? Even in art it is undesirable. That’s the beauty of aspiration; the pleasures of effort never pall. I don’t know whether I’m laughing or crying, Jim! You look so solemn and miserable, and — and funny! But if you try to look dignified now, I’ll certainly laugh! You dear, blessed, overgrown boy — just as bad as you possibly can be! Just as funny and unreasonable and perverse as are all boys! But Jacqueline loves you dearly — oh, dearly — and she trusts you with her heart and her happiness and with every beauty yet undreamed and unrevealed that a girl could learn to desire on earth! Are you contented? Oh, Jim! Jim! If you knew how I adore you! You must go, dear. It will mean a long night’s work for me if you don’t. But it’s so hard to let you go — when I — love you so! When I love you so! Good-bye. Yes, to-morrow. Don’t call at noon; Mrs. Hammerton is coming for a five-minute chat. And I do want you to myself for the few moments we may have together. Come about five and we can have tea here beside my desk.”
He came next day at five. The day after that he arrived at the same hour, bringing with him her ring; and, as he slipped it over her finger, for the first time her self-control slipped, too, and she bent swiftly and kissed the jewel that he was holding.
Then, flushed and abashed, she shrank away, an exquisite picture of confusion, and stood turning and turning the ring around, her head obstinately lowered, absolutely unresponsive again to his arm around her and his cheek resting close against hers.
“What a beauty of a ring, Jim!” she managed to say at last. “No other engagement ring ever existed half as lovely and splendid as my betrothal ring. I am sorry for all the empresses and queens and princesses who can never hope to possess a ring to equal the ring of Jacqueline Nevers, dealer in antiquities.”
“Nor can they hope to possess such a hand to adorn it,” he said, “ — the most beautiful, the purest, whitest, softest, most innocent hand in the world! The magic hand of Jacqueline!”
“Do you like it?” she asked, shyly conscious of its beauty.
“It is matchless, darling. Let empresses shriek with envy.”
“I’m listening very intently, but I don’t hear them. Jim. Also, I’ve seen a shop-girl with far lovelier hands. But please go on thinking so and hearing crowned heads shriek. I rather like your imagination.”
He laughed from sheer happiness:
“I’ve got something to whisper to you. Shall I?”
“What?”
“Shall I whisper it?”
She inclined her small head daintily, then:
“Oh!” she exclaimed, startled and blushing to the tips of her ears.
“Will you be ready?”
“I — yes. Yes — I’ll be ready — —”
“Does it make you happy?”
“I can’t realise — I didn’t know it was to be so soon — so immediate — —”
“We’ll go to Silverwood. We can catch the evening express — —”
“Dearest!”
“You can go away with me for one week, can’t you?”
“I can’t go now!” she faltered.
“For how long can you go, Jacqueline?”
“I — I’ve got to be back on Tuesday morning.”
“Tuesday!”
“Isn’t it dreadful, Jim. But I can’t avoid it if we are to be married on Monday next. I must deal honourably by my clients who trust me. I warned you that our wedding trip would have to be postponed if you married me this way — didn’t I, dear?”
“Yes.”
She stood looking at him timidly, almost fearfully, as he took two or three quick, nervous steps across the floor, turned and came back to her.
“All right,” he said. “Our wedding trip will have to wait, then; but our wedding won’t. We’ll be married Monday, go to Silverwood, and come back Tuesday — if it’s a matter of honour. I never again mean to interfere with your life’s business, Jacqueline. You know what is best; you are free and entitled to the right of decision.”
“Yes. But because I must decide about things that concern myself alone, you don’t think I adore you any the less, do you, Jim?”
“Nor do I love you the less, Jacqueline, because I can decide nothing for you, do nothing for you.”
“Jim! You can decide everything for me — do everything! And you have done everything for me — by giving me my freedom to decide for myself!”
“I gave it to you, Jacqueline?”
“Did you think I would have taken it if you had refused it?”
“But you said your happiness depended on it.”
“Which is why you gave it to me, isn’t it?” she asked seriously.
He laughed. “You wonderful girl, to make me believe that any generosity of mine is responsible for your freedom!”
“But it is! Otherwise, I would have obeyed you and been disgraced in my own estimation.”
“Do you mean that mine is to be the final decision always?”
“Why, of course, Jim.”
He laughed again. “Empty authority, dear — a shadowy symbol of traditional but obsolete prerogative.”
“You are wrong. Your decision is final. But — as I know it will always be for my happiness, I can always appeal from your prejudice to your intelligence,” she added naïvely. And for a moment was surprised at his unrestrained laughter.
“What does it matter?” she admitted, laughing, too. “Between you and me the right thing always will be done sooner or later.”
His laughter died out; he said soberly: “Always, God willing. It may be a little hard for me to learn — as it’s hard, now, for example, to say good-bye.”
> “Jim!”
“You know I must, darling.”
“But I don’t mind sitting up a few minutes later to-night — —”
“I know you don’t. But here’s where I exercise my harmlessly arbitrary authority for your happiness and for the sake of your good digestion.”
“What a brute you are!”
“I know it. Back to your desk, darling! And go to bed early.”
“I wanted you to stay — —”
“Ha! So you begin to feel the tyranny of man! I’m going! I’ve got a job, too, if you want to know.”
“What!”
“Certainly! How long did you suppose I could stand it to see you at that desk and then go and sit in a silly club?”
“What do you mean, darling?” she asked, radiant.
“I mean that Jack Cairns, who is a broker, has offered me a job at a small but perfectly proper salary, with the usual commission on all business I bring in to the office. And I’ve taken it!”
“But, dear — —”
“Oh, Vail can run my farm without any advice from me. I’m going to give him more authority and hold him responsible. If the place can pay for itself and let us keep the armour and jades, that’s all I ask of it. But I am asking more of myself — since I have begun to really know you. And I’m going to work for our bread and butter, and earn enough to support us both and lay something aside. You know we’ve got to think of that, because — —” He looked very serious, hesitated, bent and whispered something that sent the bright colour flying in her cheeks; then he caught her hand and kissed the ring-finger.
“Good-bye,” she murmured, clinging for an instant to his hand.
The next moment he was gone; and she stood alone for a while by her desk, his ring resting against her lips, her eyes closed.
Sunday she spent with him. They went together to St. John’s Cathedral in the morning — the first time he had been inside a church in years. And he was in considerable awe of the place and of her until they finally emerged into the sunshine of Morningside Park.
Under a magnificent and cloudless sky, they walked together, silent or loquacious by turns, bold and shy, confident and timid. And she was a little surprised to find that, in the imminence of marriage, her trepidation was composure itself compared to the anxiety which seemed to assail him. All he had thought of was the license and the clergyman; and they had attended to those matters together. But she had wished him to have Jack Cairns present, and had told him that she desired to ask some friend of her girlhood to be her bridesmaid.
“Have you done so?” he inquired, as they descended the heights of Morningside, the beautiful weather tempting them to a long homeward stroll through Central Park.
“Yes, Jim, I must tell you about her. She, like myself, is not a girl that men of your sort might expect to meet — —”
“The loss is ours, Jacqueline.”
“That is very sweet of you. Only I had better tell you about Cynthia Lessler — —”
“Who?” he asked, astonished.
“Cynthia Lessler, my girlhood friend.”
“She is an actress, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Her home life was very unhappy. But I think she has much talent, too.”
“She has.”
“I am glad you think so. Anyway, she is my oldest friend, and I have asked her to be my bridesmaid to-morrow.”
He continued silent beside her so long that she said timidly:
“Do you mind, Jim?”
“I was only thinking — how it might look in the papers — and there are other girls you already know whose names would mean a lot — —”
“Yes, I know. But I don’t want to pretend to be what I am not, even in the papers. I suppose I do need all the social corroboration I can have. I know what you mean, dear. But there were reasons. I thought it all over. Cynthia is an old friend, not very happy, not the fortunate and blessed girl that your love is making of me. But she is good and sweet and loyal to me, and I can’t abandon old friends, especially one who is not very fortunate — and I — I thought perhaps it might help her a little — in various ways — to be my bridesmaid.”
“That is like you,” he said, reddening. “You never say or do anything but there lies in it some primary lesson in decency to me.”
“You goose! Isn’t it natural for a girl to wish for her oldest friend at such a time? That’s really all there is to the matter. And I do hope you will like Cynthia.”
He nodded, preoccupied. After a few moments he said:
“Did you know that Jack Cairns had met her?”
“Yes.”
“Oh!” His troubled eyes sought hers, then shifted.
“That was another reason I wish to ask her,” she said in a low voice.
“What reason?”
“Because Mr. Cairns knew her only as a very young, very lonely, very unhappy girl, inexperienced, friendless, poor, almost shelterless; and engaged in a profession upon which it is almost traditional for men to prey. And I wish him to know her again as a girl who is slowly advancing in an honest profession — as a modest, sweet, self-respecting woman — and as my friend.”
“And mine,” he said.
“You — darling!” she whispered.
CHAPTER XIII
They were married in the morning at St. George’s in Stuyvesant Square.
Gay little flurries of snow, like wind-blown petals from an apple bough, were turning golden in the warm outbreak of brilliant sunshine; and there was blue sky overhead and shining wet pavements under foot as Jacqueline and Desboro came out of the shadows of the old-time church into the fresh splendour of the early morning.
The solemn beauty of the service still possessed and enthralled them. Except for a low word or two, they were inclined to silence.
But the mating sparrows were not; everywhere the little things, brown wings a-quiver, chattered and chirped in the throes of courtship; now and then, from some high façade rang out the clear, sweet whistle of a starling; and along the warm, wet streets ragged children were selling violets and narcissus, and yellow tulips tinted as delicately as the pale spring sunshine.
A ragged little girl came to stare at Jacqueline, the last unsold bunch of wilted violets lying on her tray; and Jacqueline laid the cluster over the prayer-book which she was carrying, while Desboro slipped a golden coin into the child’s soiled hand.
Down the street his chauffeur was cranking the car; and while they waited for it to draw up along the curb, Jacqueline separated a few violets from the faintly fragrant cluster and placed them between the leaves of her prayer-book.
After a few moments he said, under his breath:
“Do you realise that we are married, Jacqueline?”
“No. Do you?”
“I’m trying to comprehend it, but I can’t seem to. How soft the breeze blows! It is already spring in Stuyvesant Square.”
“The Square is lovely! They will be setting out hyacinths soon, I think.” She shivered. “It’s strange,” she said, “but I feel rather cold. Am I horridly pale, Jim?”
“You are a trifle colourless — but even prettier than I ever saw you,” he whispered, turning up the collar of her fur coat around her throat. “You haven’t taken cold, have you?”
“No; it is — natural — I suppose. Miracles frighten one at first.”
Their eyes met; she tried to smile. After a moment he said nervously:
“I sent out the announcements. The evening papers will have them.”
“I want to see them, Jim.”
“You shall. I have ordered all this evening’s and to-morrow morning’s papers. They will be sent to Silverwood.”
The car rolled up along the curb and stopped.
“Can’t I take you to your office?” he whispered.
“No, dear.”
She laid one slim hand on his arm and stood for a moment looking at him.
“How pale you are!” he said again, under his breath.
“Brides are apt
to be. It’s only a swift and confused dream to me yet — all that has happened to us to-day; and even this sunshine seems unreal — like the first day of spring in paradise!”
She bent her proud little head and stood in silence as though unseen hands still hovered above her, and unseen lips were still pronouncing her his wife. Then, lifting her eyes, winningly and divinely beautiful, she looked again on this man whom the world was to call her husband.
“Will you be ready at five?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
They lingered a moment longer; he said:
“I don’t know how I am going to endure life without you until five o’clock.”
She said seriously: “I can’t bear to leave you, Jim. But you know you have almost as many things to do as I have.”
“As though a man could attend to things on his wedding day!”
“This girl has to. I don’t know how I am ever going to go through the last odds and ends of business — but it’s got to be managed somehow. Do you really think we had better go up to Silverwood in the car? Won’t this snow make the roads bad? It may not have melted in the country.”
“Oh, it’s all right! And I’ll have you to myself in the car — —”
“Suppose we are ditched?” She shivered again, then forced a little laugh. “Do you know, it doesn’t seem possible to me that I am going to be your wife to-morrow, too, and the next day, and the next, and always, year after year. Somehow, it seems as though our dream were already ending — that I shall not see you at five o’clock — that it is all unreal — —”
The smile faded, and into her blue eyes came something resembling fear — gone instantly — but the hint of it had been there, whatever it was; and the ghost of it still lingered in her white, flower-like face.
She whispered, forcing the smile again: “Happiness sometimes frightens; and it is making me a little afraid, I think. Come for me at five, Jim, and try to make me comprehend that nothing in the world can ever harm us. Tell your man where to take me — but only to the corner of my street, please.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 656