The Crux: A Novel, Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  BAINVILLE EFFECTS.

  Lockstep, handcuffs, ankle-ball-and-chain, Dulltoil and dreary food and drink; Small cell, cold cell, narrow bed and hard; High wall, thick wall, window iron-barred; Stone-paved, stone-pent little prison yard-- Young hearts weary of monotony and pain, Young hearts weary of reiterant refrain: "They say--they do--what will people think?"

  At the two front windows of their rather crowded little parlor satMiss Rebecca and Miss Josie Foote, Miss Sallie being out on a foragingexpedition--marketing, as it were, among their neighbors to collectfresh food for thought.

  A tall, slender girl in brown passed on the opposite walk.

  "I should think Vivian Lane would get tired of wearing brown," saidMiss Rebecca.

  "I don't know why she should," her sister promptly protested, "it's agood enough wearing color, and becoming to her."

  "She could afford to have more variety," said Miss Rebecca. "The Lanesare mean enough about some things, but I know they'd like to have herdress better. She'll never get married in the world."

  "I don't know why not. She's only twenty-five--and good-looking."

  "Good-looking! That's not everything. Plenty of girls marry that arenot good-looking--and plenty of good-looking girls stay single."

  "Plenty of homely ones, too. Rebecca," said Miss Josie, with meaning.Miss Rebecca certainly was not handsome. "Going to the library, ofcourse!" she pursued presently. "That girl reads all the time."

  "So does her grandmother. I see her going and coming from that libraryevery day almost."

  "Oh, well--she reads stories and things like that. Sallie goes prettyoften and she notices. We use that library enough, goodness knows, butthey are there every day. Vivian Lane reads the queerestthings--doctor's books and works on pedagoggy."

  "Godgy," said Miss Rebecca, "not goggy." And as her sister ignoredthis correction, she continued: "They might as well have let her go tocollege when she was so set on it."

  "College! I don't believe she'd have learned as much in any college,from what I hear of 'em, as she has in all this time at home." TheFoote girls had never entertained a high opinion of extensive culture.

  "I don't see any use in a girl's studying so much," said Miss Rebeccawith decision.

  "Nor I," agreed Miss Josie. "Men don't like learned women."

  "They don't seem to always like those that aren't learned, either,"remarked Miss Rebecca with a pleasant sense of retribution for thatremark about "homely ones."

  The tall girl in brown had seen the two faces at the windows opposite,and had held her shoulders a little straighter as she turned the corner.

  "Nine years this Summer since Morton Elder went West," murmured MissJosie, reminiscently. "I shouldn't wonder if Vivian had stayed singleon his account."

  "Nonsense!" her sister answered sharply. "She's not that kind. She'snot popular with men, that's all. She's too intellectual."

  "She ought to be in the library instead of Sue Elder," Miss Rebeccasuggested. "She's far more competent. Sue's a feather-headed littlething."

  "She seems to give satisfaction so far. If the trustees are pleasedwith her, there's no reason for you to complain that I see," said MissRebecca with decision.

  * * * * *

  Vivian Lane waited at the library desk with an armful of books to takehome. She had her card, her mother's and her father's--all utilized.Her grandmother kept her own card--and her own counsel.

  The pretty assistant librarian, withdrawing herself with some emphasisfrom the unnecessary questions of a too gallant old gentleman, came toattend her.

  "You _have_ got a load," she said, scribbling complex figures with oneend of her hammer-headed pencil, and stamping violet dates with theother. She whisked out the pale blue slips from the lid pockets,dropped them into their proper openings in the desk and inserted thecards in their stead with delicate precision.

  "Can't you wait a bit and go home with me?" she asked. "I'll help youcarry them."

  "No, thanks. I'm not going right home."

  "You're going to see your Saint--I know!" said Miss Susie, tossing herbright head. "I'm jealous, and you know it."

  "Don't be a goose, Susie! You know you're my very best friend,but--she's different."

  "I should think she was different!" Susie sharply agreed. "And you'vebeen 'different' ever since she came."

  "I hope so," said Vivian gravely. "Mrs. St. Cloud brings out one'svery best and highest. I wish you liked her better, Susie."

  "I like you," Susie answered. "You bring out my 'best and highest'--ifI've got any. She don't. She's like a lovely, faint, bright--bubble! Iwant to prick it!"

  Vivian smiled down upon her.

  "You bad little mouse!" she said. "Come, give me the books."

  "Leave them with me, and I'll bring them in the car." Susie lookedanxious to make amends for her bit of blasphemy.

  "All right, dear. Thank you. I'll be home by that time, probably."

  * * * * *

  In the street she stopped before a little shop where papers andmagazines were sold.

  "I believe Father'd like the new Centurion," she said to herself, andgot it for him, chatting a little with the one-armed man who kept theplace. She stopped again at a small florist's and bought a little bagof bulbs.

  "Your mother's forgotten about those, I guess," said Mrs. Crothers, theflorist's wife, "but they'll do just as well now. Lucky you thought ofthem before it got too late in the season. Bennie was awfully pleasedwith that red and blue pencil you gave him, Miss Lane."

  Vivian walked on. A child ran out suddenly from a gate and seized uponher.

  "Aren't you coming in to see me--ever?" she demanded.

  Vivian stooped and kissed her.

  "Yes, dear, but not to-night. How's that dear baby getting on?"

  "She's better," said the little girl. "Mother said thank you--lots oftimes. Wait a minute--"

  The child fumbled in Vivian's coat pocket with a mischievous upwardglance, fished out a handful of peanuts, and ran up the path laughingwhile the tall girl smiled down upon her lovingly.

  A long-legged boy was lounging along the wet sidewalk. Vivian caughtup with him and he joined her with eagerness.

  "Good evening, Miss Lane. Say--are you coming to the club to-morrownight?"

  She smiled cordially.

  "Of course I am, Johnny. I wouldn't disappoint my boys foranything--nor myself, either."

  They walked on together chatting until, at the minister's house, shebade him a cheery "good-night."

  Mrs. St. Cloud was at the window pensively watching the western sky.She saw the girl coming and let her in with a tender, radiantsmile--a lovely being in a most unlovely room.

  There was a chill refinement above subdued confusion in thatCambridge-Bainville parlor, where the higher culture of the secondMrs. Williams, superimposed upon the lower culture of the first, asthat upon the varying tastes of a combined ancestry, made the placesomehow suggestive of excavations at Abydos.

  It was much the kind of parlor Vivian had been accustomed to fromchildhood, but Mrs. St. Cloud was of a type quite new to her. Clothedin soft, clinging fabrics, always with a misty, veiled effect to them,wearing pale amber, large, dull stones of uncertain shapes, andslender chains that glittered here and there among her scarfs andlaces, sinking gracefully among deep cushions, even able to sinkgracefully into a common Bainville chair--this beautiful woman hadcaptured the girl's imagination from the first.

  Clearly known, she was a sister of Mrs. Williams, visitingindefinitely. Vaguely--and very frequently--hinted, her husband had"left her," and "she did not believe in divorce." Against herbackground of dumb patience, he shone darkly forth as A Brute ofunknown cruelties. Nothing against him would she ever say, and everyyoung masculine heart yearned to make life brighter to the IdealWoman, so strangely neglected; also some older ones. Her Young Men'sBible Class was the pride of Mr. Williams' hear
t and joy of such youngmen as the town possessed; most of Bainville's boys had gone.

  "A wonderful uplifting influence," Mr. Williams called her, andrefused to say anything, even when directly approached, as to "thefacts" of her trouble. "It is an old story," he would say. "She bearsup wonderfully. She sacrifices her life rather than her principles."

  To Vivian, sitting now on a hassock at the lady's feet and looking upat her with adoring eyes, she was indeed a star, a saint, a cloud ofmystery.

  She reached out a soft hand, white, slender, delicately kept, wearingone thin gold ring, and stroked the girl's smooth hair. Vivian seizedthe hand and kissed it, blushing as she did so.

  "You foolish child! Don't waste your young affection on an old ladylike me."

  "Old! You! You don't look as old as I do this minute!" said the girlwith hushed intensity.

  "Life wears on you, I'm afraid, my dear.... Do you ever hear from him?"

  To no one else, not even to Susie, could Vivian speak of what nowseemed the tragedy of her lost youth.

  "No," said she. "Never now. He did write once or twice--at first."

  "He writes to his aunt, of course?"

  "Yes," said Vivian. "But not often. And he never--says anything."

  "I understand. Poor child! You must be true, and wait." And the ladyturned the thin ring on her finger. Vivian watched her in a passion ofadmiring tenderness.

  "Oh, you understand!" she exclaimed. "You understand!"

  "I understand, my dear," said Mrs. St. Cloud.

  When Vivian reached her own gate she leaned her arms upon it andlooked first one way and then the other, down the long, still street.The country was in sight at both ends--the low, monotonous, woodedhills that shut them in. It was all familiar, wearingly familiar. Shehad known it continuously for such part of her lifetime as wassensitive to landscape effects, and had at times a mad wish for anearthquake to change the outlines a little.

  The infrequent trolley car passed just then and Sue Elder joined her,to take the short cut home through the Lane's yard.

  "Here you are," she said cheerfully, "and here are the books."

  Vivian thanked her.

  "Oh, say--come in after supper, can't you? Aunt Rella's had anotherletter from Mort."

  Vivian's sombre eyes lit up a little.

  "How's he getting on? In the same business he was last year?" sheasked with an elaborately cheerful air. Morton had seemed to changeoccupations oftener than he wrote letters.

  "Yes, I believe so. I guess he's well. He never says much, you know.I don't think it's good for him out there--good for any boy." AndSusie looked quite the older sister.

  "What are they to do? They can't stay here."

  "No, I suppose not--but we have to."

  "Dr. Bellair didn't," remarked Vivian. "I like her--tremendously,don't you?" In truth, Dr. Bellair was already a close second to Mrs.St. Cloud in the girl's hero-worshipping heart.

  "Oh, yes; she's splendid! Aunt Rella is so glad to have her with us.They have great times recalling their school days together. Aunty usedto like her then, though she is five years older--but you'd neverdream it. And I think she's real handsome."

  "She's not beautiful," said Vivian, with decision, "but she's a lotbetter. Sue Elder, I wish----"

  "Wish what?" asked her friend.

  Sue put the books on the gate-post, and the two girls, arm in arm,walked slowly up and down.

  Susie was a round, palely rosy little person, with a delicate face andsoft, light hair waving fluffily about her small head. Vivian's hair wastwice the length, but so straight and fine that its mass had no effect.She wore it in smooth plaits wound like a wreath from brow to nape.

  After an understanding silence and a walk past three gates and backagain, Vivian answered her.

  "I wish I were in your shoes," she said.

  "What do you mean--having the Doctor in the house?"

  "No--I'd like that too; but I mean work to do--your position."

  "Oh, the library! You needn't; it's horrid. I wish I were in your shoes,and had a father and mother to take care of me. I can tell you, it's nofun--having to be there just on time or get fined, and having to pokeaway all day with those phooty old ladies and tiresome children."

  "But you're independent."

  "Oh, yes, I'm independent. I have to be. Aunt Rella _could_ take careof me, I suppose, but of course I wouldn't let her. And I dare saylibrary work is better than school-teaching."

  "What'll we be doing when we're forty, I wonder?" said Vivian, afteranother turn.

  "Forty! Why I expect to be a grandma by that time," said Sue. She wasbut twenty-one, and forty looked a long way off to her.

  "A grandma! And knit?" suggested Vivian.

  "Oh, yes--baby jackets--and blankets--and socks--and little shawls. Ilove to knit," said Sue, cheerfully.

  "But suppose you don't marry?" pursued her friend.

  "Oh, but I shall marry--you see if I don't. Marriage"--here shecarefully went inside the gate and latched it--"marriage is--a woman'sduty!" And she ran up the path laughing.

  Vivian laughed too, rather grimly, and slowly walked towards her owndoor.

  The little sitting-room was hot, very hot; but Mr. Lane sat with hiscarpet-slippered feet on its narrow hearth with a shawl around him.

  "Shut the door, Vivian!" he exclaimed irritably. "I'll never get overthis cold if such draughts are let in on me."

  "Why, it's not cold out, Father--and it's very close in here."

  Mrs. Lane looked up from her darning. "You think it's close becauseyou've come in from outdoors. Sit down--and don't fret your father;I'm real worried about him."

  Mr. Lane coughed hollowly. He had become a little dry old man withgray, glassy eyes, and had been having colds in this fashion eversince Vivian could remember.

  "Dr. Bellair says that the out-door air is the best medicine for acold," remarked Vivian, as she took off her things.

  "Dr. Bellair has not been consulted in this case," her father returnedwheezingly. "I'm quite satisfied with my family physician. He's a man,at any rate."

  "Save me from these women doctors!" exclaimed his wife.

  Vivian set her lips patiently. She had long since learned how widely shediffered from both father and mother, and preferred silence to dispute.

  Mr. Lane was a plain, ordinary person, who spent most of a moderatelyuseful life in the shoe business, from which he had of late withdrawn.Both he and his wife "had property" to a certain extent; and now livedpeacefully on their income with neither fear nor hope, ambition norresponsibility to trouble them. The one thing they were yet anxiousabout was to see Vivian married, but this wish seemed to be no nearerto fulfillment for the passing years.

  "I don't know what the women are thinking of, these days," went on theold gentleman, putting another shovelful of coal on the fire with acareful hand. "Doctors and lawyers and even ministers, some of 'em!The Lord certainly set down a woman's duty pretty plain--she was tocleave unto her husband!"

  "Some women have no husbands to cleave to, Father."

  "They'd have husbands fast enough if they'd behave themselves," heanswered. "No man's going to want to marry one of theseself-sufficient independent, professional women, of course."

  "I do hope, Viva," said her mother, "that you're not letting that Dr.Bellair put foolish ideas into your head."

  "I want to do something to support myself--sometime, Mother. I can'tlive on my parents forever."

  "You be patient, child. There's money enough for you to live on. It'sa woman's place to wait," put in Mr. Lane.

  "How long?" inquired Vivian. "I'm twenty-five. No man has asked me tomarry him yet. Some of the women in this town have waitedthirty--forty--fifty--sixty years. No one has asked them."

  "I was married at sixteen," suddenly remarked Vivian's grandmother."And my mother wasn't but fifteen. Huh!" A sudden little derisivenoise she made; such as used to be written "humph!"

  For the past five years, Mrs. Pettigrew had made her home with theLanes
. Mrs. Lane herself was but a feeble replica of her energeticparent. There was but seventeen years difference in their ages, andcomparative idleness with some ill-health on the part of thedaughter, had made the difference appear less.

  Mrs. Pettigrew had but a poor opinion of the present generation. In heractive youth she had reared a large family on a small income; in heractive middle-age, she had trotted about from daughter's house to son'shouse, helping with the grandchildren. And now she still trotted aboutin all weathers, visiting among the neighbors and vibrating as regularlyas a pendulum between her daughter's house and the public library.

  The books she brought home were mainly novels, and if she perusedanything else in the severe quiet of the reading-room, she did not talkabout it. Indeed, it was a striking characteristic of Mrs. Pettigrewthat she talked very little, though she listened to all that went onwith a bright and beady eye, as of a highly intelligent parrot. And now,having dropped her single remark into the conversation, she shut herlips tight as was her habit, and drew another ball of worsted from theblack bag that always hung at her elbow.

  She was making one of those perennial knitted garments, which, in heryoung days, were called "Cardigan jackets," later "Jerseys," and now bythe offensive name of "sweater." These she constructed in great numbers,and their probable expense was a source of discussion in the town. "Howdo you find friends enough to give them to?" they asked her, and shewould smile enigmatically and reply, "Good presents make good friends."

  "If a woman minds her P's and Q's she can get a husband easy enough,"insisted the invalid. "Just shove that lamp nearer, Vivian, will you."

  Vivian moved the lamp. Her mother moved her chair to follow it anddropped her darning egg, which the girl handed to her.

  "Supper's ready," announced a hard-featured middle-aged woman, openingthe dining-room door.

  At this moment the gate clicked, and a firm step was heard coming upthe path.

  "Gracious, that's the minister!" cried Mrs. Lane. "He said he'd be inthis afternoon if he got time. I thought likely 'twould be to supper."

  She received him cordially, and insisted on his staying, slipping outpresently to open a jar of quinces.

  The Reverend Otis Williams was by no means loathe to take occasionalmeals with his parishioners. It was noted that, in making pastoralcalls, he began with the poorer members of his flock, and frequentlyarrived about meal-time at the houses of those whose cooking heapproved.

  "It is always a treat to take supper here," he said. "Not feelingwell, Mr. Lane? I'm sorry to hear it. Ah! Mrs. Pettigrew! Is thatjacket for me, by any chance? A little sombre, isn't it? Good evening,Vivian. You are looking well--as you always do."

  Vivian did not like him. He had married her mother, he had christenedher, she had "sat under" him for long, dull, uninterrupted years; yetstill she didn't like him.

  "A chilly evening, Mr. Lane," he pursued.

  "That's what I say," his host agreed. "Vivian says it isn't; I say itis."

  "Disagreement in the family! This won't do, Vivian," said the ministerjocosely. "Duty to parents, you know! Duty to parents!"

  "Does duty to parents alter the temperature?" the girl asked, in a voiceof quiet sweetness, yet with a rebellious spark in her soft eyes.

  "Huh!" said her grandmother--and dropped her gray ball. Vivian pickedit up and the old lady surreptitiously patted her.

  "Pardon me," said the reverend gentleman to Mrs. Pettigrew, "did youspeak?"

  "No," said the old lady, "Seldom do."

  "Silence is golden, Mrs. Pettigrew. Silence is golden. Speech issilver, but silence is golden. It is a rare gift."

  Mrs. Pettigrew set her lips so tightly that they quite disappeared,leaving only a thin dented line in her smoothly pale face. She wascalled by the neighbors "wonderfully well preserved," a phrase sheherself despised. Some visitor, new to the town, had the hardihood touse it to her face once. "Huh!" was the response. "I'm just sixty. HenryHaskins and George Baker and Stephen Doolittle are all older'n Iam--and still doing business, doing it better'n any of the young folksas far as I can see. You don't compare them to canned pears, do you?"

  Mr. Williams knew her value in church work, and took no umbrage at hersomewhat inimical expression; particularly as just then Mrs. Laneappeared and asked them to walk out to supper.

  Vivian sat among them, restrained and courteous, but inwardly at warwith her surroundings. Here was her mother, busy, responsible, servingcreamed codfish and hot biscuit; her father, eating wheezily, andfinding fault with the biscuit, also with the codfish; hergrandmother, bright-eyed, thin-lipped and silent. Vivian got on wellwith her grandmother, though neither of them talked much.

  "My mother used to say that the perfect supper was cake, preserves,hot bread, and a 'relish,'" said Mr. Williams genially. "You have theperfect supper, Mrs. Lane."

  "I'm glad if you enjoy it, I'm sure," said that lady. "I'm fond of abit of salt myself."

  "And what are you reading now, Vivian," he asked paternally.

  "Ward," she answered, modestly and briefly.

  "Ward? Dr. Ward of the _Centurion_?"

  Vivian smiled her gentlest.

  "Oh, no," she replied; "Lester F. Ward, the Sociologist."

  "Poor stuff, I think!" said her father. "Girls have no business toread such things."

  "I wish you'd speak to Vivian about it, Mr. Williams. She's got beyondme," protested her mother.

  "Huh!" said Mrs. Pettigrew. "I'd like some more of that quince, Laura."

  "My dear young lady, you are not reading books of which your parentsdisapprove, I hope?" urged the minister.

  "Shouldn't I--ever?" asked the girl, in her soft, disarming manner."I'm surely old enough!"

  "The duty of a daughter is not measured by years," he repliedsonorously. "Does parental duty cease? Are you not yet a child in yourfather's house?"

  "Is a daughter always a child if she lives at home?" inquired thegirl, as one seeking instruction.

  He set down his cup and wiped his lips, flushing somewhat.

  "The duty of a daughter begins at the age when she can understand thedistinction between right and wrong," he said, "and continues as longas she is blessed with parents."

  "And what is it?" she asked, large-eyed, attentive.

  "What is it?" he repeated, looking at her in some surprise. "It issubmission, obedience--obedience."

  "I see. So Mother ought to obey Grandmother," she pursuedmeditatively, and Mrs. Pettigrew nearly choked in her tea.

  Vivian was boiling with rebellion. To sit there and be lectured at thetable, to have her father complain of her, her mother invite pastoralinterference, the minister preach like that. She slapped hergrandmother's shoulder, readjusted the little knit shawl on thestraight back--and refrained from further speech.

  When Mrs. Pettigrew could talk, she demanded suddenly of theminister, "Have you read Campbell's New Theology?" and from that onthey were all occupied in listening to Mr. Williams' strong, clear andextensive views on the subject--which lasted into the parlor again.

  Vivian sat for awhile in the chair nearest the window, where some thinthread of air might possibly leak in, and watched the minister with acurious expression. All her life he had been held up to her as aperson to honor, as a man of irreproachable character, great learningand wisdom. Of late she found with a sense of surprise that she didnot honor him at all. He seemed to her suddenly like a relic of pastages, a piece of an old parchment--or papyrus. In the light of thestudies she had been pursuing in the well-stored town library, theteachings of this worthy old gentleman appeared a jumble of age-oldtraditions, superimposed one upon another.

  "He's a palimpsest," she said to herself, "and a poor palimpsest atthat."

  She sat with her shapely hands quiet in her lap while hergrandmother's shining needles twinkled in the dark wool, and hermother's slim crochet hook ran along the widening spaces of some thin,white, fuzzy thing. The rich powers of her young womanhood longed foroccupation, but she could never hypnotize herself with "fa
ncywork."Her work must be worth while. She felt the crushing cramp andloneliness of a young mind, really stronger than those about her, yetheld in dumb subjection. She could not solace herself by loving them;her father would have none of it, and her mother had small use forwhat she called "sentiment." All her life Vivian had longed for moreloving, both to give and take; but no one ever imagined it of her, shewas so quiet and repressed in manner. The local opinion was that if awoman had a head, she could not have a heart; and as to having abody--it was indelicate to consider such a thing.

  "I mean to have six children," Vivian had planned when she was younger."And they shall never be hungry for more loving." She meant to make upto her vaguely imagined future family for all that her own youth missed.

  Even Grandma, though far more sympathetic in temperament, was notgiven to demonstration, and Vivian solaced her big, tender heart bycuddling all the babies she could reach, and petting cats and dogswhen no children were to be found.

  Presently she arose and bade a courteous goodnight to the still prolixparson.

  "I'm going over to Sue's," she said, and went out.

  * * * * *

  There was a moon again--a low, large moon, hazily brilliant. The airwas sweet with the odors of scarce-gone Summer, of coming Autumn.

  The girl stood still, half-way down the path, and looked steadily intothat silver radiance. Moonlight always filled her heart with a vagueexcitement, a feeling that something ought to happen--soon.

  This flat, narrow life, so long, so endlessly long--would nothing everend it? Nine years since Morton went away! Nine years since thestrange, invading thrill of her first kiss! Back of that was onlychildhood; these years really constituted Life; and Life, in thegirl's eyes, was a dreary treadmill.

  She was externally quiet, and by conscience dutiful; so dutiful, soquiet, so without powers of expression, that the ache of anunsatisfied heart, the stir of young ambitions, were whollyunsuspected by those about her. A studious, earnest, thoughtfulgirl--but study alone does not supply life's needs, nor does suchfriendship as her life afforded.

  Susie was "a dear"--Susie was Morton's sister, and she was very fondof her. But that bright-haired child did not understand--could notunderstand--all that she needed.

  Then came Mrs. St. Cloud into her life, stirring the depths of romance,of the buried past, and of the unborn future. From her she learned toface a life of utter renunciation, to be true, true to her ideals, trueto her principles, true to the past, to be patient; and to wait.

  So strengthened, she had turned a deaf ear to such possible voice ofadmiration as might have come from the scant membership of the YoungMen's Bible Class, leaving them the more devoted to Scripture study.There was no thin ring to turn upon her finger; but, for lack ofbetter token, she had saved the rose she wore upon her breast thatnight, keeping it hidden among her precious things.

  And then, into the gray, flat current of her daily life, sharplyacross the trend of Mrs. St. Cloud's soft influence, had come a newforce--Dr. Bellair.

  Vivian liked her, yet felt afraid, a slight, shivering hesitancy asbefore a too cold bath, a subtle sense that this breezy woman, strong,cheerful, full of new ideas, if not ideals, and radiating actualpower, power used and enjoyed, might in some way change the movementof her life.

  Change she desired, she longed for, but dreaded the unknown.

  Slowly she followed the long garden path, paused lingeringly by thatrough garden seat, went through and closed the gate.