There Are Victories

by Charles Yale Harrison

  “Go ahead, darling, what is it? Tell me.”

  “Suddenly his hands—they were white as though they had never seen the sun—were under my dress. At first I didn’t understand, then I jumped to my feet, terribly frightened.”

  “Oh, you poor thing!”

  “That was my first experience—.”

  “God, how awful!”

  “Ever since then—a man’s touch—I felt the same on my wedding night.”

  Walter put his arms about her, pressed her slender body close to him. He felt her tangled hair in his face, and gently stroked her head and shoulder. In the dark, a hot tear fell upon his bare arm, then another. But there was no sound.

  “Please, darling, you mustn’t,” he said, “please.”

  ≠

  Later, much later, Ruth arose and came back with fruit and a tall, dark bottle of sparkling burgundy. They sat and talked, supremely happy.

  “Whatever shall I say to Marie?”

  “Tell her we’re married.”

  “Impossible, she knows Catholics can’t be divorced.”

  “Then say nothing. Let her think what she pleases. What shall we do about our apartments? Will you give yours up or shall I move in here?”

  “I don’t know, let’s not think about it now, darling.”

  “Do you feel sinful, Ruth dearest?”

  “I should feel very terrible about it—but really I don’t feel the least gnawing of my conscience. I suppose that’s because I’m now beyond redemption.”

  “An abandoned woman—beautiful, darling, but quite abandoned.” He laughed and tousled her hair as he spoke.

  Ruth’s face clouded and she suddenly became serious:

  “Promise me that you’ll always love me, Walter. It would be too terrible if this—.”

  “I promise. For always and always.”

  “And you won’t leave me some night and go off with another woman?”

  “Promise, cross my heart—hope to die.”

  The burgundy was finished and Ruth left the room and soon returned with another bottle. Her face was alight.

  “Walter, dear, what do you think happened? I found Marie in the kitchen pretending that she couldn’t sleep. She beamed on me and with tears in her eyes—yes, real tears—she kissed me and hoped that I would be happy and asked very eagerly if she might not drink a toast to our happiness.”

  Walter slipped his dressing gown on and together they went into the dining room. Marie was radiant. She blushed and offered her compliments to monsieur. Three glasses were filled and before drinking, Marie made a little speech in which she said that she hoped everyone would be happy, that love was the most important thing in the world, that God loved love most of all and forgave all sins which were committed in its name. Furthermore, she hoped that no matter what happened that madame would still keep her on.

  ≠

  It was late afternoon when Ruth and her lover awoke.

  LXIV

  The months which followed were the fullest in Ruth’s adult life. For the first time since she left the convent she experienced a profound inner quietude, a glowing satisfaction. All doubts were dispelled; misgivings were transformed into certitudes by the illogical but efficacious power of human affection. Where pleading, texts and rationalizing had failed utterly, love—all cynicism notwithstanding—triumphed.

  They had made no definite arrangements, sometimes Walter stayed overnight in Ruth’s apartment and at other times it was the other way about. There was an air of indefiniteness about the practical aspects of their mode of living. There were long breakfasts and endless talks after which Walter hurried off downtown. There was a Wall Street brokerage house where his duties were light and remunerative. The senior partner was a classmate of Walter’s father. He was home quite early in the afternoon. There were recitals, or matinees and long rambling conversations that seemed to be interminable and terribly important, so that Ruth once remarked: “I thought we would soon talk ourselves out but just before falling asleep at night I always remember something I have forgotten to tell you.”

  Occasionally there were parties, sometimes in one apartment, sometimes in the other, at which there were artists and writers, shabby but light-hearted bohemians from Greenwich Village. Walter had a large and regular income and there were always liberal and radical magazines that were needing money, geniuses to be sent away to the country where masterpieces were to be completed, and his apartment was a veritable meeting-place. Drinks were served, discussions became furious and then suddenly subsided when food was served and the phonograph was turned on. There was dancing until the early hours of the morning. Ruth’s calmness pervaded these parties and squabbling theorists appealed to her to settle their never-ending disputes.

  One night when they were alone she asked Walter why the revolutionists, from whose lips the words freedom and humanity fell with monotonous regularity, were in reality intolerant and oppressive in their personal relationships. There was one fellow, brilliant and humanitarian, who called for the brotherhood of man, and beat his wife. She observed that radicals, for example, when in controversy, called each other “comrade” with venom and hatred. There was much talk of barricades and having discussed the day when their political enemies (the artists included cultural ones) would be done away with, the parties broke up and everybody went home sated with food and argument.

  At these parties Marie, sometimes assisted by a Japanese butler, engaged for the evening, moved from group to group serving refreshments. She listened to the terrible arguments fearful lest words be abandoned for the fist. In Mont Tremblant for example, when men shouted at each other with purple faces, blood was invariably spilled afterwards. These infidels, she wrote home, were a strange brood; but there was nothing to fear from them. The Church was in no danger, they talked blasphemously—and that was the end of it. She could not understand how madame, who was so dignified and refined, and monsieur, who was obviously un gentilhomme could consort with such persons—worse than the most unlettered habitant from the backwoods.

  ≠

  And so, living in happy oblivion of the practical world which surrounded them, the first warm June mornings arrived for Ruth and Walter. The first intolerable, hot flush of passion was past and a more quiet and profoundly satisfying period lay before them.

  LXV

  Gallic romanticism was one thing and one’s duty to the Church and to God was another and so Marie, in order to discover what her status in the new ménage was, wrote to Father Joli who tended his small flock at Mont Tremblant, Quebec.

  The reverend father was cautious in his advice: “My dear Marie,” he wrote, “there are many things which happen in a great city which could never happen in a small town like ours, for which I thank the Lord and all his saints. The question you ask is somewhat unusual but it would be unwise, I think, for you to leave your present situation because you think your mistress is living in sin. Your duty is clear: pray that your mistress may be led back to the way of righteousness—and, my daughter, pray for me.”

  The following Sunday Marie went to early mass, prayed for Father Joli, her mistress’ soul—and asked the Lord to arrange matters so that there would be no drastic changes in madame’s ménage.

  LXVI

  One day at breakfast Ruth and Walter sat reading the morning newspaper. He was lost in an involved news dispatch from Russia, she in a criticism of a piano recital they had heard the night before. They were both silent and ate their food in a half-abstracted manner. Suddenly Walter looked up while Ruth continued to read. Absently she lifted her cup to her lips and sipped her coffee, at the same time following the printed lines. An idea occurred to him and he stirred his coffee and smiled as he turned the thought over in his mind. He called her by name.

  “Yes, Walter,” she replied without looking up, but smiling.

  “I have been thinking—”

  “Yes, what about?” Still looking at the paper.r />
  “Do you realize that we are really married—actually married?”

  Ruth looked up, astonished. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  His mood was infectious and she smiled in sympathy. He leaned across the table and placed his hand on hers.

  “Do you realize,” he said, “that we are fully and absolutely married—man and wife—till death do us part and all that?”

  “Walter dear, you’re very lovely, but don’t you think you’re a little mad?”

  “Not at all. I suppose you’re one of those old fuddy-duddies who think all marriages take place in church, or at the City Hall—or in heaven.”

  “Walter, if you’re off on another attack on the holy state of matrimony, please save your breath. I agree with you. It’s all nonsense. Now go ahead and read about Stalin and Trotsky and let me be. Wilkinson says that de Pachmann is a faker.”

  “To hell with Wilkinson! Listen to me!” He was greatly excited and Ruth leaned back with a gesture of resignation.

  “Not more than half an hour,” she said, “I’ve some shopping to do this morning. Go ahead, dear.”

  “All right, then. You think that people are married when the man slips a ring on the woman’s finger, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes they are.”

  “And you think that when they take an apartment or a home in the suburbs and have children they’re married, don’t you?”

  “Nearly always. Of course, I’m an old fuddy-duddy and I don’t understand these matters.”

  “Well, they’re not, see? Priests don’t marry, nor do city clerks. Suburban homes may be inhabited by persons living in the foulest sin and rings are sold in the five-and-ten-cent stores—”

  “Darling,” Ruth laughed, “if you don’t come out with it, I’ll burst.”

  “People are married,” Walter said slowly and emphatically, punctuating each word with a stab of his finger at an imaginary foe, “when they read at the breakfast table and not before.”

  “Walter darling—you are an idiot.”

  “No, I’m not. Here we’re thinking we’re living in sin and all the time we’ve been as married as the most righteous philistines. And think of it: the mayor didn’t do it, nor did the bishop. The New York Herald did it.”

  Ruth said nothing in reply but looked at him with great affection.

  “Sin is exciting, shameful and dreadful,” he went on, “and here we are living like sedate, respectable persons—reading the paper at breakfast as though love didn’t matter.”

  He leaped from his chair and, running behind her, pulled her head back and kissed her eyes and mouth.

  “Darling,” he was tipsy with exuberance, “darling, we are married—do you hear? Married! And we haven’t had a wedding. But we shall have one. As soon as possible. Tomorrow—we shall invite all our friends and we’ll drink and dance—”

  “Walter, what are you saying?”

  “I shall buy you a wedding ring this very day and we shall be married before all our friends.”

  “But Walter, we can’t. I’m not divorced. It’ll be bigamy.” She was startled as she spoke.

  “I don’t mean that sort of wedding—we needn’t have the sanction of the church or the civil authorities. Our love and our consciences are enough.”

  She was shocked but happy beyond expression. He continued, still holding her head in his hands and talking down to her:

  “Of course, we shan’t be able to invite our parents, they’d never understand. They told us that marriage is a sacrament—the outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace. But, strangely enough, that’s just what our wedding will be. All our friends will be there, for love must be sanctified in the presence of one’s dearest friends. We shall both drink from a delicate wine glass and afterwards I shall crush it under my heel, as the Jews do, as a symbol that no one else shall ever drink from the cup of our happiness.”

  “Oh, Walter, I am so happy. You are an idiot, darling, but I am so happy. Let me go. There are a million things to be done, shopping—.”

  “I’ll sit down this minute,” Walter said, “and call our friends.”

  It was ten o’clock when the conversation ended but it was nearly noon when they got around to dressing and making the necessary telephone calls.

  LXVII

  For the following three months Walter and Ruth were vagabonds. She wanted him to see her native Canada, and above all, she longed for the sight of the sea again. It was decided that they would cruise in the West Indies first. They packed light, tropical clothing and Walter took along a pith helmet.

  They spent the first pleasant day on board making acquaintances, sipping long, cool drinks on deck, and dancing after dinner. The United Fruit boat, immaculate in a fresh coat of white paint and appointed with innumerable luxuries, steamed into the dusk of the first day.

  As the sun set and the water became sinister and deep, a subdued mood took hold of Ruth. She sat in her deck chair and watched the dark, purple water and the black shadow which the ship cast on the face of the sea, imponderable and old with aeons of restless tossing. An excessive sadness overcame her. She had felt this way with Edgar at Gaspé (the thought startled her for a moment) and now with Walter. Always in the presence of the sea she wanted life and abiding love with terrifying desperation. Time had not evaporated her fierce desire for happiness nor made her indifferent.

  As though he sensed the nature of her thoughts, Walter asked: “Are you happy, Ruth darling?”

  She looked up, startled. “Why yes, of course. “What makes you ask?”

  “Here you are with your blessed sea—it is growing dark—the feeling of the ship under you—and still you look as sad as a motherless foal.”

  “But I am happy, dear, dreadfully happy. Like all cowards I am frightened of happiness.”

  “Frightened of happiness? What nonsense!”

  —Nonsense, a brisk tone, a dark night at Gaspé. Edgar said the same thing. Then, too, I felt the premonition of disaster.

  “Promise me that you will always love me.”

  “Always, Ruth.” His hand searched for hers under the plaid rug. Finding it, he held it tightly. “Always.”

  There was a long silence and only the swish of the sea was heard. The faint sound of music was heard from the other end of the ship.

  “Do you really feel as if you were married to me?”

  “As married as if it were done in a great, granite cathedral by a surpliced priest—as married, precious, as if the floor of the nave were strewn with orchids and lilies, and little flower girls preceded you and the organ pealed a processional and your mother were there weeping.”

  “And when you grow tired of me will you be horrid and remember that we aren’t properly married?”

  “Darling, but we are married. If it weren’t for your husband and the ban of the Church we would be married—with bell and candle. Or is that how you’re excommunicated? Besides I shan’t grow tired of you.”

  “Because I’m so dreadfully frightened. I am older than you, you know.”

  “Good heavens, woman, you may be a few years older than I, but that—that simply adds to your charm.”

  ≠

  They wandered about West Indian cities, saw the high-perched, massive citadel overlooking the Haitian capital, drank Bacardi cocktails in Havana (and marveled at the indescribable rags of the poor in the poverty-stricken sections of the city), rode in a carriage on the gravel roads of Bermuda, bathed in the blue waters at Hamilton and saw bananas loaded on the docks of Puerto Cortés where the ship stopped over for a morning. The sea was placid although it was the time of year when sailors feared the Caribbean hurricanes. Schools of silvery flying fish came up in sprays before the oncoming ship and the sun turned their scales into myriad-colored tiny rainbows.

  They returned to New York early in September and Ruth insisted that Walter see the Laurentians in the Autumn. So
one morning they got into his roadster and turned the nose of the car north towards Canada and raced for the border. They stopped for a day in Montreal at the Mount Royal Hotel (she preferred not to go to the Ritz) and bought a basket of Veuve Clicquot at the commission store on Peel Street and drank a pint of it before breakfast. “Like sailors on pay day,” Walter said. They felt very gay all morning, riding up the side of the mountain and looking down on the city.

  Then north through St. Jerome to the Laurentians. It was late September and the rolling mountains, the most beautiful he had ever seen, Walter admitted, flashed by the car. The Canadian maples blazed brilliantly: red, brown, yellow and with a tardy yellowish green here and there. The mountains rolled towards the north and in the distance all colors were merged into a non-committal hazy blue. Now, Ruth thought, life seemed to be abandoning itself to one last bacchanalia of color, one last orgy before the white death arrived.

  The next day they returned to Montreal and walked about the city looking at the churches and the historical museums, they motored past the Sacred Heart Convent where Ruth had spent her childhood years. That night at the hotel Ruth told Walter that she was pregnant.

  “What shall I do?” she asked.

  “Why there’s only one thing to do. Have it, by all means.” He got up from his seat and walked over to her, pulling her face towards him, and kissed her. “I think it will be great—splendid.”

  “But we can’t, Walter.”

  “Why not?”

  “It will complicate matters. After all—now please don’t be angry—we aren’t married. And a child will make matters so much worse.”

  “Dearest, you are quite silly, really you are. It will simplify everything. If a child doesn’t marry us, then nothing does. Besides, common-law marriages are legal in New York.”