“I was told,” the old priest replied, “that you were so embittered that you were nearly an atheist. That was why I hurried up to see you. Good heavens, I said to myself, it cannot be that Ruth Courtney is an atheist.”
“Do you think that not wanting to live with one’s husband has anything to do with atheism, father?”
For a moment the priest was lost in thought, then he answered with some hesitation:
“The Church has very definite opinions about these matters and I presume that the Church in all its wisdom is right. But of this I am sure: God will find room in heaven for an atheist such as you.”
“Oh, father, I am so grateful.”
“You see, Christ was a woman, too. He will understand.”
Ruth escorted him down the corridor to the elevator, through the lobby past smartly-gowned women and well-groomed men, and out to the street. He disappeared into the darkness and the last she ever saw of Father Boniface was his loose cassock, like an old woman’s skirts, flapping in the sharp November wind.
XLVIII
The nights were particularly lonely after Marie had put Guy to bed and the days, too, were not without a certain bleakness. She remembered how men had looked at her when she first came from the convent. The sudden stare, the following of masculine eyes, the hot eagerness which she had mistaken for admiration were now clearly understood; she had heard much masculine talk since that time. She was fair game. She sensed this in the smirking faces of the men who greeted her in the street, at parties, or in the hotel lobby. There were suave questions, little, ambiguous jokes built upon the assumption that a woman can live without a man no longer than a lecher can live without gratifying his lust.
“How do you get along?”
There would be a cold silence, tense with the feeling for Ruth that she must fight her way past the implied insult of this question.
“Get along? What do you mean?”
“I mean it must be rather tiresome living all alone at a hotel.”
“I have a large suite.”
—Will the man never go? See, he wants to be the good friend, wants to substitute his vile body for another. His lips are dry. Oh, how he would love to console me. Yes, yes, I understand.
Then the defeated stammerings and the solicitous offering of assistance:
“I mean, any time that you feel I can be of any help do not hesitate to call upon me. We are still on Roslyn Avenue. Or better still, call me at the office.”
XLIX
In the Spring following the Armistice, Edgar’s father came to see Ruth. His beard was now quite white and his manner was less assured than it was on her wedding day. He played with the black cord of his glasses and came to the point after a painful, halting beginning.
“I have never blamed you, Ruth, I was never certain of him. I tried very hard to prepare him to take over my business. It is a big thing now. The war has made me rich.”
He stopped suddenly as though the thought were unpleasant. Ruth experienced a feeling of pity for the man; something of the old confidence which had helped him win control of a fleet of merchant ships was now gone.
—There is something so pathetic about the man. The war gave him ships, money, fame but, like a mad practical joker, took away his boy, my husband.
“He was never very strong in character and they did something to him in the army that broke him completely. The war strengthened some but for those who were sensitive or weak, it was hell. Here at home, doing normal things he would have made you a good husband.” The old man’s voice cracked and he removed his black corded glasses and wiped them carefully. “He came late in my life, too late perhaps, and I pinned all of my hopes on him. And now he is broken. That is what I came to see you about. I should like very much for you to take him back—it would be a great gesture. Your life still lies ahead of you, I know, and it is not right that I should ask you to do what I would not undertake if I were in your position. I understand thoroughly.” He concluded as though he were debating the question with himself.
“How is he?” Ruth asked.
“Very bad. He’s drinking too much, far too much. He seems to have lost his grip on things. The simplest problems are beyond his ability, poor lad.”
“It was that way ever since he came home.”
“Yes. Things have reached the point where—where I have asked him not to come to the office any longer. He is living with us now and it is all very dreadful—I mean, the people he brings home—.”
“I understand.”
“When I came here I had intended to ask you to try to live with him once more and try to rehabilitate him, but when I entered this room I realized that such a thing was impossible. It is too much to ask of you. It is more than anyone should expect—even a father.”
The old man’s eyes, half-hidden behind his bushy brows and long black lashes, became wet. He removed his glasses and without shame dried his tears. He felt he could do this thing only in the presence of this woman with whom he shared a community of suffering.
“I allow him to have his own way as much as possible. After all, it is not entirely his fault. I cannot be too severe with my own son, can I?”
“No, no, of course not,” Ruth replied with sudden pity.
“Can I?” her father-in-law asked again as though his question had not been answered. Ruth shook her head.
“You will be going away, I imagine,” he said after a moment’s pause; “it will be hard to live here now. This is a small city and Edgar, poor boy, will prove very unpleasant, I am afraid. It is all your fault, he says. Of course, I do not agree with him. [This with sudden reassurance.] His attitude frightens me; it is threatening. I think, my dear girl, that it would be better if you went away for some time.”
“I was planning to send Guy to a good English school when he is old enough. They take them quite young there, don’t they? Mother is talking of going to England to live with the Steeles. Perhaps she will take him along. I don’t know.”
“I will not presume to give you advice. I have lived a long time and I’ve had a hard struggle. I built a very small business into a big thing. But really, dear girl, it is nothing compared to the exorbitant price I’ve had to pay. When my ships were on the seven seas—running the submarine blockade—I thought I had won a victory, but there are no victories. And as time goes on, others, too, will discover this.”
There was nothing that Ruth could say in reply. She, too, had thought of these things. Mr. Kennedy leaned forward in his chair and spoke in a low voice touched with resigned sorrow. He patted Ruth’s arm affectionately as he continued:
“Go away somewhere and live your own life. Montreal is the last city in the world in which you can do it. Go to London, or Paris, or New York. Find yourself a corner in life, seize it and fight bitterly to hold it; squeeze every bit of happiness out of life that you can. I know I should talk to you of your responsibilities to your family, your home, and your Church. Instead, I would suggest that you think of your responsibility to yourself.”
He smiled brightly and stroked his gray van Dyke beard.
“I fancy that the Bishop would be quite shocked to hear me speak this way, but then the Bishop hasn’t lost what I have, nor seen as much.”
They sat for some time in silence, the old man tapping his thumb-nail with his glasses. The quiet was not broken until Guy, laughing and boisterous, ran into the room and shattered it to bits with his shouts.
L
Suddenly, Ruth discovered, Guy was no longer a little boy. Almost imperceptibly he had grown taller and at once, it seemed, he began to resent the solicitous care which his mother bestowed upon him. He was now lanky and strained hard at the maternal leash, resented Marie’s constant supervision, wanted to get off by himself at times, hated to be called darling.
“Aw, mum, I’m getting to be a big fellow. I don’t like to sit on your lap. What would the fellows say if they saw me?”
It was painful to realize that the first six years of brooding care were now forgotten, even resented. She remembered the bits of broken fragile robin’s egg which she had found one Spring in the country: the fluttering mother bird, the nervous cries and then the catastrophe as the fledgling fell to earth, wounded. Ruth shuddered as she recalled.
—But it will not be so with Guy. I have the means to see that he flies safely. He will be unhappy without a father, living in the company of women all during his childhood and youth. A sound English school will do him good. Eton, perhaps. The Steeles in London will be able to manage that. Cricket pavilions, brightly-colored blazers, ginger beer, tuck shops, top hats on Sunday …
The lad had come to hate life in the hotel, it was too confining. He was happy at the private school to which he was being sent because there were other boys, but in the late afternoon he dawdled about the lobby or sometimes went riding with Marie or Ruth. On Sundays he sat in the hotel dining-room, stiff and uncomfortable, yawned and wished in his little heart that he had a dad like the other boys—or at least a dog. But the hotel management prohibited dogs, and in the street, when he went walking with Marie, he stopped all sorts of stray dogs, patted their heads and, kneeling by their sides, spoke softly to them. The lad had legs like a colt and outgrew his clothes almost from month to month.
“He’ll be tall like your father,” Mrs. Throop would say. “Perhaps it will be best for him to go to a good school.”
She said this mournfully knowing that once the lad was abroad all hope of a possible reconciliation between Edgar and Ruth would be ended.
—It will be cheaper in England. The Russian bonds are worthless and now that Frederick is no longer here, God rest his soul, I would rather be with my own in England.
“And then,” Mrs. Throop said, “I can take a run up to the school from London every now and then and see how he’s getting along. Perhaps you are wise in wanting him to go, Ruth, darling. They grow up weak and flabby when they haven’t a man to keep a firm grip on them.”
But Ruth was undecided. After all, the lad was a mere child. Still, this sort of thing was no good for a growing boy. She wavered until the following Spring. Nothing decisive had occurred to alter her monotonous routine.
Then one night as she was coming home from the theater, she saw Edgar standing in front of the hotel. He was engaged in a fierce discussion with the doorman. He was unkempt and disheveled as though he had slept in his clothes for days. His eyes were bloodshot and for a moment she hesitated before getting out of the car. The doorman had placed his bulk before the drunken man and firmly refused to allow him to pass. Ruth decided to make a dash for it and started for one of the doors on the Peel Street side of the corner. Edgar saw her and staggered in her direction. She was a few paces from the door and she heard his shuffling, unsteady steps. As she opened the door and started to go through the entrance she heard his high-pitched voice scream after her: “There she goes, the —.” The door was not quick enough in shutting out the detestable word: “whore.”
She was pale when she entered her apartment, sleep was out of the question and she spent the night desperately trying to formulate a definite line of action.
—Things can’t go on like this any longer. I shall have to go away. What if poor Guy had witnessed such a scene! He must go abroad with mother, then I will settle my affairs here. After that I want to get away somewhere, New York, perhaps. The future will have to take care of itself.
The next few days were spent in agitated preparation. She made arrangements at the bank to have an account opened in London for Guy’s benefit; there were clothes to be bought for the boy, reservations to be made for the passage. Finally everything was in readiness and she went to the dock to see Guy and her mother off. She had imagined that the moment of parting would be tearful, but within a few minutes Guy had made friends with one of the junior officers. When it was time to say good-by there was a scurrying and a searching and he was eventually brought up out of the engine room in the company of his newly found friend, full of tales of the wonders of the ship. It was not until Ruth saw the huge liner swing out into the St. Lawrence that a desire to weep overcame her.
She was lonely, dreadfully lonely, for the first few days after the boy had sailed, but soon the winding up of her affairs occupied all of her attention. There were afternoons spent with Sir Robert; there were papers to be signed and real estate men to be interviewed now that she had decided to sell the Sherbrooke Street house.
“I think you will find New York an ideal place in which to hide,” Sir Robert said. “It is full of people who only ask to be let alone. And with an income such as yours it will be paradise.”
Late that afternoon she gave Marie instructions to pack. They would leave the following night.
“Any place is better than Montreal, don’t you think, Marie?”
“Yes, madame,” the maid replied, thinking of the influx of Protestants since the close of the war. “Certainly, madame.”
LI
The train stopped for a while at Rouse’s Point to allow the United States customs and immigration officials to board, and then continued south. It was hard to sleep; the night was warm and the rhythm of the wheels on the rails brought tangled melodies to her mind, insistent, difficult to dispel. Even now that all of her ties with Montreal were irrevocably broken she was surprised at her courage of the past month. She had thought the parting with Guy would be painful, but it was not. Far more important to him were the ship’s officers, the deck machinery, the ventilator— “What are those things for, mum?” She had hugged him, feeling that the moment called for great emotion, but the boy drew away quickly, ashamed of the warmth of her embrace. Then the tugs came and there was great excitement as Guy leaned over the side and watched the lines made fast. There were last-minute warnings, shouts of “all ashore” and soon the great liner was out in midstream. There was the dismal playing of bands which make sailings such a trial at a parting—and then back to the loneliness of the hotel. And now—why to New York? Why not to London with the lad, or to Paris? She did not know.
—New York is big, it is as unfathomable as the sea, one can lose oneself in its lights, among its million houses. There will be evenings, delightfully lonely. I have had too much of men. It will be cool and dry, alone. I shall walk at night (she remembered a few days in New York one year before Easter), through the mysterious streets, endless, straight, like poplar-lined roads of France. There will be music, I will hear the great symphonies, the renowned orchestras, the celebrated virtuosi. I will come and go and there will be no men.
She was free now. Guy was in England, the slim, hard English masters would rear him and make him firm and able to face the world. They would do it better than she had done so far. She thought of poor women whose husbands came home drunk on Saturday nights, whose lives were a series of brutal assaults, who had to submit meekly. What did such women do? For them there was no sanctuary in hotels, no luxurious compartments on trains while they fled to other cities. What did they do? Did they lie submissively while the drunken beast had his way? Or did the worms of poverty gnaw away the emotions until all sensibility was lost.
As the train rushed ahead she lay upon her berth, hands under her head and thought of what lay behind her. A whole life: the convent, Edgar, Guy … Perhaps, after all, she had been too sensitive, perhaps it all would have turned out differently if she had closed her eyes as her mother had advised. After all, it was true that men did drink—and all that.
—Strange how the world has a way of passing off its ugliness with a phrase like “all that.” Perhaps it is better so. Maybe one should not be too squeamish.
But after all, she consoled herself, there was no other way of facing the world except as oneself. On this there could be no compromise. Then she recalled with a hot feeling of shame, that her road to freedom was made possible by Uncle Francis’s money—that, too, had been a compromise. And if one were able to compromise onc
e, why not again? Possibly the distaste of meeting the world halfway grew less as time went on. In time, perhaps, the experience might grow pleasant. But come what might, she was glad that she had made the break, not only with the human wreck which the war had gratuitously presented to her but with everything which now lay behind her. She was glad that she had broken with her past before an osmosis of character had taken place, before she had come to accept things as they occurred, no longer critical, no longer measuring life according to the ideals which she had set for herself in the quiet of the convent, during her bright, brave youth.
The rhythm of the wheels on the endless rails continued to give movement to her thoughts. Rhythm and words, words and rhythm, growing in intensity like the incessant onrush of the scherzo in Beethoven’s last symphony. Scherzo! An interlude, sudden, sparkling and lively, before the last movements, a happy interval before the thunderous dissonances of the final passages. On this thought she fell into a sound sleep.
It was early when she awoke and from her window she could see the red early morning sunlight touching the Palisades with color. The Hudson was clear and lively, it reminded her of her beloved St. Lawrence. In the corridors outside the compartment she heard the sounds of slippered feet. The train rushed on, past little river villages which spot the Hudson Valley. She dressed, feeling unusually cheerful and bright. Soon the houses became more and more dense as the train continued its headlong flight. Tenement houses came into view. Lines of washed clothes, bridges, and soon the train plunged into the sudden gloom of the Park Avenue tunnel.
Ruth was in New York.
LII
Ruth established herself at a hotel overlooking Central Park and at once, it seemed, she became a New Yorker. The city demanded no passport or certificate of birth; it gave immediate sanctuary. Montreal is a horizontal city, an island inundated by low, frame dwellings stretching from Maisonneuve to Lachine in lazy flatness. New York, on the other hand, is massive and perpendicular. At first its tall silent buildings (at night) bewildered Ruth, she wandered through its streets, which seemed to taper off into infinity, and listened hungrily to its anonymous, ceaseless buzz of traffic. She felt as though the city had immediately accepted her. It had taken her to its steel-riveted heart, this city which seemed to have a corner for everyone. Always the varying sounds of the city were present. In the late afternoon there was the humming noise of the northbound traffic rising to a crescendo at dinner time, at noon there were the impatient cries of automobile klaxons, the doleful clanging of cells on the rickety Fifty-ninth Street crosstown cars and late at night there was the melancholy hooting of the boats on the rivers.
There Are Victories Page 13