Senator North
G >>
Gertrude Atherton >> Senator North
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 | 22 |
23
She felt calm enough this afternoon, and she opened with no enthusiasm
the note which had arrived from Burleigh. She might have drawn some
from its superabundant amount, but she frowned and threw it in the
fire. Then she went to her mother's room and announced her engagement.
"My dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Madison. "Well!--I am delighted."
Then she looked keenly at Betty and withheld her congratulations. But
she asked no questions, although the edge suddenly left her pleasure
and she began to wonder if Burleigh were to be congratulated.
"He is coming to dinner," Betty continued, "and I want you to promise
me that you will not leave us alone for a moment, and that you will go
with me to New York to-morrow."
"I will do anything you like, of course, and I always enjoy New York."
"I want to get away from Washington, and I want to shop more than
anything in life. I hate the thought of everything serious,--the
country, the war, everybody and everything, and I feel that if I could
spend two weeks with shops and dressmakers I'd be quite happy--almost
my old self again."
"I wish you were," said Mrs. Madison, with a sigh. "I wish this
country never had had any politics."
The instinct of coquetry was deeply rooted in Betty Madison, but that
evening she selected her most unbecoming gown. She was one of those
women who never look well in black, and look their worst in it when
their complexion shows the tear of secret trouble and broken rest. She
had a demi-toilette of black chiffon trimmed with jet and relieved
about the neck with pink roses. She cut off the roses; and when
arrayed had the satisfaction of seeing herself look thirty-five.
For a moment she wavered, and Leontine, with tears, begged to be
allowed to remove the gown; but Betty set her teeth and went
downstairs.
She had the further satisfaction of seeing a brief flash of surprise
and disappointment in Burleigh's eyes as he came forward to greet her;
and, indeed, the gown seemed to depress the company for the entire
evening. Betty tried to rattle on gayly, but the painful certainty
that she looked thirty-five (perhaps more), and that Burleigh saw it,
and her mother (who was visibly depressed) saw it, and the butler and
the footman (both of whom, she knew through Leontine, admired her
extravagantly) saw it, dashed her spirits to zero, and she fell into
an unreasoning rage with Senator North.
"I am going to New York to-morrow, and you are not to follow me," she
said with a final effort at playfulness. "I have been at such a
nervous strain over this wretched war that I must be frivolous and
feminine for two whole weeks--and what so serious as being engaged?"
Burleigh sighed. His spirits were unaccountably low. He had forgotten
his country for an entire day, and rushed up to the house ten minutes
before the appointed hour, his spirits as high as a boy's on his way
to the cricket field. But his apple had turned to ashes in a funereal
gown, and there seemed no colour about it anywhere.
"Of course you want a change," he said, "but I hope you will write to
me."
"I'll write you a little note every day," she said with sudden
contrition. "I know I'll feel--and look ever so much better in a few
days."
"There!" she thought with a sigh, "I've made this wretched sacrifice
for nothing, and I'll never forget how I'm looking at the present
moment, to my dying day. I know I'll wear my most distracting gown the
next time he comes. Well, what difference? I've got to marry him,
anyhow."
She shook hands cordially with him when he rose to go, an hour later,
but she did not leave her mother's side. He did not attempt to smile,
but shook hands silently with both and left the room as rapidly as
dignity would permit.
Mrs. Madison put her handkerchief to her eyes and burst into tears.
"Poor dear man!" she exclaimed. "I felt exactly as if we were having
our last dinner together before he went off to the war to get killed.
I never spent such a dismal evening in my life. And what on earth made
you put on that horrid gown? You look a fright--you almost look older
than he does."
"Don't turn the knife round, please. I'm rather sorry, to tell the
truth, but I didn't want him to be too overjoyed. I couldn't have
stood it."
"Are you sorry that you have engaged yourself to him?"
"No, I am glad--very glad." But she said it without enthusiasm. When
she went up to her room, she presented the black gown to Leontine and
sent her to bed. Then she put on a peignoir of pink silk and lace and
examined herself in the mirror. She looked fifteen years younger and
wholly charming; there was no doubt of it.
XVII
The next day, before starting for New York, she wrote a note to
Senator North:--
I am going to marry Robert Burleigh. On Tuesday morning I almost went
to your house--to bring you back with me here. I came to my senses in
time; but I might not again. I want you to understand.
I wish he were not on the winning side. But he is the only man I can
even think of marrying.
I do not think this much is disloyal to him. But I will not say other
things. B. M.
Burleigh came to the train to see her off, and Betty looked so
charming in her rich brown travelling frock and little turban, and
smiled so gayly upon him, that his heavy spirit lifted its wings and
he begged to be allowed to go to New York on Saturday. But to this she
would not listen, and he was forced to content himself with making
elaborate preparations for her comfort in the little drawing-room, and
buying a copy of every paper and magazine the newsboy had on sale.
"I am sure he will make an ideal husband," said Mrs. Madison, as she
waved her hand to him from the window. "He certainly is very much of a
man," admitted Betty, "but what on earth are we to do with all these
papers? I haven't room to turn round."
The excitement in Washington, great as it was, had been mostly within
doors; in New York it appeared to be entirely in the streets, if one
excepted the corridors of the hotels. The population, still pale and
nervously talkative, surged up and down the sidewalks. On the morrow
the city put forth her hundred thousand flags. The very air seemed to
turn to stars and stripes.
The Madisons went to the Waldorf-Astoria, and in its refreshing
solitudes felt for the first time in months that they must go in
search of excitement if they wanted it; none would reach them here.
"Now that the war is declared, I am sorry;" admitted Mrs. Madison,
"for so many Americans will be killed."
"Instead of Cubans. I've done with the war. I won't even regret."
For three days Betty shopped furiously, or held long consultations
with her dressmaker. On Sunday, after church, she read to her mother,
but refused to discuss her engagement, and on Monday she resumed her
shopping. She wrote to Burleigh immediately after breakfast every
morning, then dismissed him from her mind for twenty-four hours.
The beautiful spring fabrics were in the shops, and she bought so many
things she did not want, even for a trousseau, that she wondered if
Mrs. Mudd would accept a trunk full of "things." She envied Mrs. Mudd,
and would find a contradictory pleasure in making her happy. Miss
Trumbull never had manifested any false pride, and matrimony had
altered her little in other ways.
At night she slept very well, and if she did not think of Burleigh,
neither would she think of Senator North.
She did not open a newspaper. What the country did now had no interest
for her; it was marching to its drums, and nothing could stop it. And
she would have her fill of politics for the rest of her natural life.
As Mrs. Madison always was content with a novel, she made no complaint
at the absence of newspapers, particularly as the fighting had not
begun. Moreover, Betty took her to the theatre every evening, a
dissipation which her invalidism endured without a protest.
It was on Wednesday afternoon that Betty, returning to her rooms, met
Sally Carter in a corridor of the hotel. The two girls kissed as if no
war had come between them, and Miss Carter announced that she was
going to Cuba to nurse the American soldier.
"I almost feel conscience-stricken," she remarked, "now that we
actually are in for it. I don't think I believed it ever really could
happen. It was more like a great drama that was about to take place
somewhere on the horizon. But if the American boys have to be shot,
I'm going to be there to do what I can."
They entered the parlor of Mrs. Madison's suite, and that good lady,
who had read until her eyes ached, welcomed Sally with effusion and
demanded news of Washington.
"We haven't seen a paper or a soul," she said. "We have our meals up
here, and I feel as if I were a Catholic in retreat. It's been a
relief in a way, especially after the _salon_, but I should like to
know if Washington has burned down, or anything."
"Washington is still there and still excited," said Miss Carter,
dropping into a chair and taking off her hat, which she ran the pin
through and flung on the floor. "How it keeps it up is beyond the
comprehension of one poor set of nerves. I am now dead to all emotion
and longing for work. I'm even sorry I painted my best French
handkerchiefs red, white, and blue. If you haven't seen the papers I
suppose you don't know that Mrs. North is dead. She died suddenly
of paralysis on the twenty-second. The strength she got in the
Adirondacks soon began to leave her by degrees; the doctor--who is
mine, you know--told me the other day that it meant nothing but a
temporary improvement at any time; but he had hoped that she would
live for several years yet. Betty, what on earth do you find so
interesting in Fifth Avenue? I hate it, with its sixty different
architectures."
"But it looks so beautiful with all the flags," said Betty, "and the
one opposite is really magnificent."
It was a half-hour before Sally ceased from chattering and went in
search of her father. Betty had managed to control both her face and
her knees, and listened as politely as a person may who longs to
strangle the intruder and achieve solitude. The moment Sally had gone
Betty went straight to her room, avoiding her mother's eyes, which
turned themselves intently upon her.
She did not reappear for dinner, as her mother was made cheerful by
the society of the Carters; but as Sally passed her room on her way to
bed, she called her in, and the two girls had a few moments'
conversation.
XVIII
"Molly," said Betty, the next morning, "I should like to go up to the
Adirondacks alone for a few weeks. Would you mind staying here with
the Colonel and Sally for another ten days and then returning with
them? Sally says she will move into my room and that she and the
Colonel will take you to the theatre and do everything they can to
make you happy. You know the Colonel delights to be with you."
"I understand, of course, that you are going," said Mrs. Madison. "I
shall not be bored, if that is what you mean. I hope you will
telegraph at once, so that the house will be warmed at least a day
before you arrive. I suppose you have got to a point in your affairs
where you must have solitude, but I wish you had not, and I wish you
would go where it is warmer."
"Oh, I shall be comfortable enough." She added in a moment, "Don't
think I do not appreciate your consideration, for I do."
Then she sat down at the desk and wrote a note to Burleigh. It was a
brief epistle, but she was a long while writing it. Her previous notes
had been dashed off in ten minutes, and usually related to the play of
the previous evening. His replies had been a curious mingling of half-
offended pride and a passion which was only restrained by the fear
that the lady was not yet ready for it.
Finally Betty concocted the missive to the satisfaction of her mind's
diplomatic condition. She had not yet brought herself to begin any of
her notes to him formally. "Dear Robert" was as yet unnatural, and
"Dear Mr. Burleigh" absurd; so she ignored the convention.
"I suddenly have made up my mind to go to the Adirondacks for a month,
_quite alone,_" she wrote. "When one is going to take a tremendous
step, one needs solitude that one may do a great deal of hard
thinking. I don't wonder that some Catholic women go into retreat. At
all events, Washington, 'the world,' even my mother, even you, who
always are so kind and considerate, seem impossible to me at present;
and if I am to live with some one else for the rest of my life, I must
have one uninterrupted month of solitary myself. Doubtless that will
do me till the end of my time! So would you mind if I asked you not
even to write to me? I have enjoyed your notes so much, but I want to
feel absolutely alone. Don't think this is petty egoism. It goes far
deeper than that! If we ever are to understand each other I am sure I
need not explain myself further.
B. M."
"It has a rather heartless ring," she thought with a sigh, "but it
will intrigue him, and--who knows? As heaven is my witness, I do not.
But I do know this, that unless I get away from them all and fairly
inside of myself, whatever I do will seem the wrong thing and I might
end by making a dramatic fool of myself."
XIX
The ice was on the lake this time, although it was melting rapidly,
but the sun shone all day. She had to wear her furs in the woods, but
the greens had never looked so vivid and fresh, and save for an
occasional woodchopper and her own servants, there was not a soul to
be met in that high solitude. The hotel across the lake would not open
for a month. Even the birds still lingered in the South.
After she had been alone for two days she wondered why, when in
trouble before, she had not turned instinctively to solitude in the
forest. It is only the shallow mind that dislikes and fears the lonely
places of Nature: the intellect, no matter what vapours may be sent up
from the heart, finds not only solace in retirement, but another form
of that companionship of the ego which the deeply religious find in
retreat. The intellectual may lack the supreme self-satisfaction of
the religious, but they find a keen pleasure in being able to make the
very most of the results of years of consistent effort.
Betty, whether alone by a roaring fire of pine cones in the living-
room, or wandering along the edge of the lake in the cold brilliant
sunshine, or in the more mysterious depths of the forest, listening to
the silence or watching the drops of light fall through the matted
treetops, felt more at peace with the world than she had done since
her fatal embarkation on the political sea. She put the memory of
Harriet Walker, insistent at first, impatiently aside, and in a day or
two that shadow crept back to its grave.
For a few days her mind, in its grateful repose, hesitated to grapple
with the question which had sent her to the mountains; and on one of
them, while thinking idly on the great political questions which had
magnetized so much of her thought during the past year, the
inspiration for which she had so often longed shot up from the
concentrated results of thinking and experience, and revealed in what
manner she could be of service to her country. This was, whatever her
personal life, to gather about her, once a week, as many bright boys
of her own condition as she could find, and interest and educate them
in the principles of patriotic statesmanship. With her own burning
interest in the subject and her personal fascination, she could
accomplish far more than any weary professor could do.
She had come up to these fastnesses to decide the future happiness of
one or two of three people, and she felt sober enough; but for almost
a week she wished that she could live here alone for the rest of her
life: she believed that in time she would be serenely content. She had
the largest capacity for human happiness, but she guessed that the
imagination could be so trained that when far from worldly conditions
it could create a world of its own, and would shrink more and more
from the practical realities. For Imagination has the instinct of
a nun in its depths and loves the cloister of a picturesque solitude.
It is a Fool's Paradise, but not inferior to the one which mortals are
at liberty to enter and ruin.
But Betty could not live here alone, she could not ignore her
responsibilities in any such primitive fashion; and so long as her
heart was alive it would make battle for real and tangible happiness.
She had a question to decide which involved not only the heart but the
mind: if she made a mistake now, she would be at odds with her higher
faculties for the rest of her life. She dreaded the sophistry which
sat on either side of the subject; and it was a question whether the
very strength of her impulse toward the man she had loved for a year
was not the strongest argument in its favour.
But she had given her word to another man, and she had the high and
almost fanatical sense of honour of the Southern race. On the other
hand, she had a practical modern brain, and during the last year she
had been living in close contact with much hard common-sense. She had
imagination, and she knew that she already had made Burleigh suffer
deeply, and had it in her power to raise that suffering to acuteness;
and if that buoyant nature were soured, a useful career might be
seriously impaired. On the other hand, she had made a greater man more
miserable still, and while he was finding life black enough she had
rushed into the camp of the enemy; and his capacity for suffering was
far deeper and more enduring than that of the younger man.
She tried to put herself as much aside from the question as possible,
but she had her rights and they made themselves heard. She knew, had
known at once, that she had outraged all she held most dear, in
engaging herself to one man when she loved another, and she had begun
to wonder--in irresistible flashes--before the news had come which
sent her to the mountains, if she should falter at the last moment.
But breeding has carried many a woman over the ploughshares of life,
and her mind was probably strong enough to go on to the inevitable
without theatric climax. At the same time the idea of marriage with
one man when she loved another was abhorrent; that it was particularly
so since marriage with the other had become possible, she understood
perfectly. And although she continued to reason and to argue, she had
a lurking suspicion that while she might be strong enough to conquer a
desire she might not be able to conquer a physical revolt, and that it
would rout her standards and decide the issue.
She had made up her mind that she would hesitate for a month and no
longer, and she also had determined that she would decide the question
for herself and throw none of the responsibility on Senator North; she
felt the impulse to write to him impersonally more than once. (Perhaps
her sense of humour also restrained her.) She wondered if it were one
year or twenty years since she had gone to him for advice; and she
knew that whichever way she decided, the desire for his good opinion
would have something to do with it.
There are only a certain number of arguments in any brain, and after
they have been reiterated a sufficient number of times they pall. From
argument Betty lapsed naturally into meditation, and the subject of
these meditations, tender, regretful, and impassioned, was one man
only; and Burleigh had no place in them. Occasionally she forced him
into her mind, but he seemed as anxious to get out as she was to drive
him; and after the ice melted and she was able to spend hours on the
lake, and rest under spreading oaks, where she had only to shut her
eyes to imagine herself companioned, she felt herself unfaithful if
she cast a solitary thought to Burleigh.
At the end of the month she was not tired of solitude, but she was
tired of her intellectual attitude. She was human first and mental
afterward; and she wanted nothing on earth but to be the wife of the
man whom she had loved for a lifetime in a year. The moment she
formulated this wish, hesitation fled and she could not wind up her
engagement with Burleigh rapidly enough. Her letter, however, was very
sweet and apologetic, and it was also very honest. She knew that
unless she told him she loved another man and intended to marry him,
he would take the next train for the Adirondacks and plead his cause
in person. His reply was characteristic.
"Very well," it ran. "I do not pretend to say I was not prepared after
your last letter from New York. And although I could not guess your
motive in accepting me, I knew that you did not love me. But if I am
not overwhelmed with surprise, the pain is no easier on that account,
and will not be until the grass has had time to grow over it a little.
And at least it is a relief to know the worst. Of course I forgive
you. I doubt if any man could feel bitterly toward you. You compel too
much love for that.
"Don't worry about me. I have work enough to do--a State to talk sense
into and a nation to which to devote my poor energies. My brain such
as it is will be constantly occupied, which is the next best good a
man can have."
ROBERT BURLEIGH.
Betty wrote him four pages of enthusiastic friendliness in reply, and
paid him the compliment of postponing her letter to Senator North
until the following day.
But on that day she rose with the feeling that the sun never would
set.
She was as brief as possible, for she knew that he hated long letters.
Nevertheless, she conveyed an exact impression of her weeks of
deliberation and analysis.
"I want you to understand," she went on, "that my only wish when I
came here for solitary thought was to do the right thing, irrespective
of my own wishes in the matter. But it seems to me there is exactly as
much to be said on one side as on the other, and it all comes to this:
right or wrong, I have decided for you because I love you; and if you
no longer can admire me, if you think that I have violated my sense of
honour, then at least I shall marry no one else. B. M."
And as her imagination was strong she did allow herself to be tortured
by doubts during the three days that elapsed before she heard from
him. She had hoped he would telegraph, but he did not, and her
imagination and her common-sense had a long and indecisive argument
which threatened ultimate depression. On the third night, however, a
messenger from the hotel opposite brought her a note from Senator
North.
"I don't know that your mental exercise has done you any harm," he had
written, "but it certainly was thrown away. You have too much common-
sense and too thorough a capacity for loving to do anything so foolish
or so outrageous as to marry the wrong man. If you had followed a
romantic impulse--induced by nervous excitement--and married him the
day you learned that your word might be put to too severe a test, you
would have been miserable, and so would Burleigh. A mistaken sense of
duty has been the cause of quite one fourth of the unhappiness of
mankind, and few have been so bigoted as not to acknowledge this when
too late. And a broken engagement is a small injustice to a man
compared to a lifetime with an unloving wife. Burleigh is unhappy now,
but it is no lack of admiration which prompts me to say that if he had
married you he would have been unhappier still. You could do nothing
by halves.
"Formalities with us would be an affectation unworthy of either, and I
have come to you at once. I knew that you would send for me, but I
preferred to wait until you wrote that your engagement was broken.
What I felt when I received your note announcing it, I leave to your
imagination, and I forgot it as quickly as possible. I understood
perfectly, but you exaggerated the dangers; for my love for you is so
great and so absorbing, so complete in all its parts, that nothing
but marriage would satisfy me. I should have preferred a memory to a
failure.
"If your mother were with you, I should go over to-night. But I shall
wait for you at five to-morrow morning where you were in the habit of
letting me board your boat. And the day will not be long enough!
R. N."
Betty slept little that night, but felt no lack of freshness the next
morning when she rose shortly after four. A broken night meant little
to her now, and happiness would have stimulated every faculty if she
had not slept for a week.
She rowed swiftly across the lake. It was almost June now, and the
warmth of summer was in the air, the paler greens among the grim old
trees of the forest. The birds had come from the South and were
singing to the accompaniment of the pines, the roar of distant
cataracts; and yet the world seemed still. The stars were white and
faint; the moon was tangled in a treetop on the highest peak.
He might have been the only man awake as he stood with the forest
behind him, and she recalled her fancy that although her horizon was
thick with flying mist his figure stood there, immovable, always. He
looked as if he had not moved since he stood there last, but the mist
was gone.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 | 22 |
23