in 1913, shannon had grown amazingly. the square was now a “plaza,” surrounded by handsome brick business houses. there were two or three factories on the outskirts of the town. the little old churches that used to be filled on sabbath mornings had given place to fine churches with stained-glass windows, which were greatly reduced in membership. what i mean is that the town was prosperous, and had a beam in its eye. wiggs street was completely changed and there was some talk of changing the name to “cutter avenue.” but this was not done. every man has his enemies. there were many pretentious residences now where cottages formerly stood. some of them had conservatories. nobody kept potted plants on the front porch, but some of them had got as far as keeping potted cedars on their stone gate posts and a colored man in rubber boots to scrub the front steps.
george cutter, no longer known as “young george” since the death of his father, received much credit for the growth and development of the town. it was mr. cutter who had induced[111] certain eastern capitalists to locate these factories near shannon. he was more than a prominent citizen at home. he was somebody in new york. he had “influence” in washington. otherwise shannon would never have obtained her hundred-thousand-dollar post office. he carried shannon county in his pocket, politically speaking, and he kept his congressman in the other pocket, in the same figurative manner.
five years after he entered the bank, he was occupying the chair and desk on the left side of the door where his father sat when george began his career on the adding machine in the cage. mr. cutter, senior, was still the nominal president, but he had a finer desk and more comfortable, less businesslike chair in the rear of his son. he was now a fat old man, drooling down to a heavy old age. he was merely president from force of habit. he did nothing but watch, with slumberous pride, his son paw the markets, reach out, speculate, risk and win, make a name for himself in the financial world.
but in 1913 all this was ancient history. the young wolf had been just beginning then to get a toothhold. now he had arrived. he had “interests” in the big corporations. when he became president, after the death of his father, the first[112] thing he did was to sell this small building to a local trust company and build a finer, larger place for his bank. here he had an office, off the directors’ room in the rear, as magnificent and grave as a sanctuary. and it was so proudly private that there was no spangled glass door leading to it visible to the vulgar public eye. capitalists and promoters visited him here, but the regular customers of the bank rarely saw him except by accident when he issued from this office, hatted, spatted, coated, carrying a cane hooked over his arm, and stepping briskly across the lobby through the door to where his car stood and shone against the curb. in that case their eyes followed him. and if these eyes belonged to women, of whatever age, they were likely to exclaim, breathe or think, “what a handsome man!”
he was more than handsome, a “presence,” almost a perfect imitation of elegance. he was the kind of man who kept his years under foot. he trod them down with so much swiftness and power in this business of getting on that they had not marked him. his face was smooth, his red hair still opulent, his eyes brilliant, masterful. when he came in or went out or passed by, they were always fixed on something straight ahead, as[113] if you were not there, anxious to catch his glance and have the honor of speaking to him. probably you wanted to remind him of how well you remembered when he started to work in the old bank. and you were a friend of his father, and had always kept your account in this bank and would continue to do so. but you must be a wheedling, forward old man to get the chance to say such things to him, because your account means nothing to him now, and your good memory only annoys him.
the reason so many men, after they become distinguished or successful, get this habit of looking straight ahead when we are standing ingratiatingly near, wishing to claim acquaintanceship with them in their humbler past, is because they wish to forget this past, and especially you who retain the speaking tongue of it.
george cutter had outgrown shannon. shannon might be proud of him, but it could not be intimate with him. he did not belong there. he was a big town man. you could almost smell wall street as he passed you, williams street, anyhow, which is only one of the elbows of wall street—a notable perfume, i can tell you, of pop-eyed dollars and busy bonds that never rested, but were always being sold again.
[114]seeing george thus, enhanced by ten additional years, you naturally want to know what changes have taken place in helen.
sometimes a slender, fair woman might be seen in cutter’s limousine, waiting at the curb before the bank. but if you saw her, you scarcely noticed her, because there was nothing distinguishing in her appearance. she always sat very still with her hands folded, her lips closed so tightly that they appeared to be primped, and with her eyes wide open, very blue like curtains drawn before windows, concealing every thought and feeling within. when cutter came through the door of the bank, stepped quickly forward and swung himself into this car with the air of a man who has not a moment to spare, she always drew a trifle closer into her corner of the seat. then they slid away noiselessly across the square and out wiggs street. even the chauffeur knew that mr. cutter never had a moment to spare and invariably exceeded the speed limit.
no word of greeting was exchanged between this husband and wife—not even a look. she did not so much as unpurse her lips to smile. his arrogant silence implied that he was alone in this car. yet we must know that it was his wish she should come for him, since she so often did[115] come and wait for him with this look of dutiful patience.
the married relation is not vocative. it tends toward silence and a sort of dreary neutrality, arrived at by years of mutual defeats. it is easier for a man to be agreeable to another woman who is not his wife for the simple reason that he is innocent of this stranger. she knows none of his faults and she has not failed him in anything. and every woman knows that she is instinctively more entertaining to a man who is not her husband, even if she despises this man and truly, patiently loves her husband, because she is under no bond to agree with him nor to avoid his prejudices. there is nothing accusative or immoral in this fact, any more than there is in a momentary change of thought. it is perfectly natural, when you consider how many years they must dwell upon the same common sense of each other.
if the weather was fine, cutter only stopped long enough to drop helen at the house. he might tell her he would be late for dinner or he might be late without telling her. then he was driven at the same spanking, glittering speed to the golf and country club for a foursome previously arranged.
cutter had imported the idea of this club. as[116] cadmus introduced letters into greece, so had he brought golf to the business men of shannon. until then middle-aged citizens accepted the sedentary habits of their years and went down to their graves corpulent and muscleless, developing only a little miserliness toward the last or a few crapulous vices. but now these men, grown bald and gray, who had never spent a surplus nickel nor taken more exercise than healthy invalids, hired caddies for fifty cents an hour, and spent recklessly for golf sticks and especially golf stockings and breeches. and they were to be seen any afternoon stepping springily over these links, whacking balls—for the ninth hole at least—with all the reared-back, straddle-legged, arm-swinging genuflections of enthusiastic youth. missionaries have spent twenty years in the heart of africa without accomplishing so much healthful good for the savages there. but in that case the idea of course is not to prolong the life of a savage, but to save his soul. still, cutter was a successful missionary in this matter of golf, because the souls of the men in shannon had long been sufficiently enured to the gospel to be saved, if they could be.
as for the women, that was a different matter.[117] very few people ever worry seriously about the salvation of these milder creatures. until quite recently they have been so securely preserved, sheltered and possessed that it was actually difficult for a woman to lose her soul by any obvious overt transgression. even then you could not be sure she had lost it, since she suffered such overwhelming martyrdom for her offense. and we do not know what kind balances may be arranged in the book of life for these poor victims of life in the flesh.
there was also a different standard for women in the matter of outdoor exercise, even at so recent a date as this of which i write. they might caper adventuresomely in the open as girls, but the idea of a married woman spreading her feet and swinging her club at a ball on the golf links at shannon was unthinkable. if they wanted the air, let them go out-of-doors; if they wanted exercise, let them go back indoors and do something.
so helen never accompanied her husband to the golf links. she always went in the house and did things that would please him, or at least satisfy him when he came home.
they were still living in the house at the end of wiggs street. no changes had been made in[118] it, not a stitch had been added to it. it was simply laundered, so to speak, once in so often with a fresh coat of white paint.
but it was not so sparsely settled within as it had been when she came there as a bride.
two years after helen’s marriage mrs. adams had passed away with no to-do about going at all. she was ill three days, very quietly and comfortably unconscious. then she had gone to join that highly respectable class of saints in paradise to which no doubt her carpenter husband already belonged. helen inherited her mother’s estate, which consisted of a few thousand dollars’ worth of securities in her safety box at the bank, the cottage on wiggs street and the contents of this cottage. the cottage was promptly sold and, together with the sale of the securities, furnished george with the money for his first successful speculation.
but helen would not part with the furniture. she had it brought to her own house. when she had distributed it in the rooms, the hall, all available spaces were filled with it. her father’s portrait, done in crayon, hung above the parlor mantel. her mother’s portrait, also a crayon, hung on the opposite wall. for years to come these two adams parents were to stare at each[119] other in a grim silence, as much as to say, “there will be a reckoning in this house some day!” which was due, of course, to the crudely veracious expression the amateur artist always gets with a crayon pencil. for at that time there was nothing but love and happiness and hope in this house. george was really planning then to build a mansion where this house stood. for a while they amused themselves drawing plans for this mansion. then george became more and more absorbed in his business. he had less time for fanciful conversation with helen. in any case the subject of the new house was dropped. it had not been mentioned for years.
i suppose if there had been children the new house would have been built. but nothing had “happened.” helen kept a cat, a canary bird and two servants. the cat was a sort of serial cat, exchanged once in so often for a kitten. the bird was the same one. she did not really care for cats, nor much for canaries, but they served the purpose of furnishing some sort of sound and motion in this silent house. she did not want the servants, either. she preferred to do her own work. she would have made an excellent wife for a poor man. she was a marvelously good one to george, who was rapidly becoming a rich man.
[120]she might have been a wonderful caretaker of a great man; she had exactly the right spirit of service and self-effacement. she developed a serene silence which was restful, never irritating. but george was not and never would be a great man. he needed a brilliant woman, and helen was only a beautiful woman. he needed a charming hostess for his home, with social gifts. and helen was only an excellent housekeeper. he knew that this house was atrociously furnished, but he did not know how it should be furnished. you may be highly appreciative of music without being a musician. he felt the need of fine, quiet things and neutral tones in his home, but he had neither the time nor the ability to achieve these effects.
once, indeed, shortly after helen had rearranged the parlor with the old adams whatnot and the adams sofa with a golden-oak spindle back, he had sent out two handsome mahogany armchairs, his idea being to overcome the monotonous color and cheapness of this room. these chairs looked like two bishops at a populist meeting. helen was pleased, but he had sense enough to know that he had blundered.
i am merely giving you his side of this affair, frankly admitting that she was by nature disqualified[121] to fill the position of wife to such a man. in the last analysis, of course, it would depend upon which of these two people such a man as george cutter or such a woman and wife as helen is the worthier type, or the more serviceable to his day and generation. it is not the reaping of what we sow ourselves—sometimes it is the reaping of what the other fellow sowed, the way we bear the burden of that—which determines our quality and courage.
as for helen, the elder mrs. cutter said it all shortly before her death.
one summer evening she lay propped high in bed, her thin knees sticking up, her thin face stingingly vivid, her eyes spiteful with pain and discontent. helen had just gone home after her daily visit, during which she ministered with exasperating patience to this invalid. mr. cutter sat beside his wife’s bed concerned for her, anxious to comfort her, but secretly wondering where she would strike. for he perceived by the spitting spark in her eye that she was about to strike.
“helen is hopeless,” she exclaimed.
he was relieved not to be the target. still he said something in reply about helen’s being a “good girl.”
“yes, and that is all she is. she is not the wife[122] for george. i knew it from the first,” she keyed off irritably.
mr. cutter ventured timidly that she had made george a “good wife.”
“good, good, good,” she repeated. “i wish somebody could think of some other word for her. but they can’t. good’s the adjective she’s been known by all her life.”
“well, it is a very good way to be known, my dear,” he returned mildly.
“there you go again. lower my pillow, mr. cutter. i can’t keep my head up and think about her. she weighs on me like a load of commonest virtues.”
he let her gently down. she glared at him. he smoothed her pillow. would she like a sip of water?
no! and she was not to be diverted, if that was what he was trying to do. “do you know what a merely good woman can be?” she demanded.
the word good occurred to him again. he wanted to say that there was nothing better than a good woman, but he refrained. he must not irritate maggie; if only she would not work herself up.
“she can be the least intelligent creature alive, obsessed with the practice of her duties. her[123] mind inside her, never in touch with what is bigger and more important outside. she can be the stone around her husband’s neck. that is what helen is.”
mr. cutter sighed. he was fond of helen.
“what has she ever done for george? i ask you that.” she waited for his answer as if she defied him to name one thing helen had done to help her husband.
“well, she’s been a good wife to him,” he repeated futilely.
“there you go again,” she exclaimed. “i’ve been a good wife to you, too, haven’t i?”
“indeed you have, my dear,” he answered gratefully.
“but was i contented with being just that? when we came to this town as poor as church mice and you got the position in the bank, i made up my mind that you should be president of that bank some day, and you are, aren’t you?”
“yes, my dear, and i owe everything to you—”
“not everything, mr. cutter,” she interrupted with a sniff; “but i helped you; i made friends for you; i showed off before people to let them know you were prosperous and a coming man. i had some pride.”
“you did, my dear. you were game and[124] looked it,” he answered with a watery smile of memory in his eye.
“and i bore a son for you.”
“you ought not to blame helen; you can’t—” he began.
“yes, i can,” she interrupted; “if she isn’t to have children, if poor george’s name is to die with him, she might at least help him enjoy his own career. but she doesn’t; she is becalmed. she hasn’t got it in her, i tell you, to do what i have done to show my pride and appreciation of the position you have made for us.”
“but, maggie, you are one woman in ten thousand. you have not only been the best of wives, you have been everything to me a man needs.”
this reduced her to proud tears, and ended the scene, he holding one hand, she pressing a scented handkerchief to her eyes with the other. she was really quite happy in a sort of fiercely indignant fashion.
i suppose every husband tells his wife some such yarn as this. and he usually gets away with it. he may even believe it for all i know, although there are some millions of other husbands controverting his testimony by the same flattery to their respective wives.
[125]we have biographies of great women, even if they are bad ones. but i doubt if there is a single biography to be found of a merely good woman, because for some reason goodness does not distinguish women, and for another reason, while it may make them useful, dependable and absolutely essential to others, it does not make them sufficiently interesting to hold the reader’s attention or the world’s attention. you never heard of one being knighted for virtue. it is not done. you never saw a monument raised to just one woman who was invincibly good and faithful in the discharge of her intimate private duties as a wife or a mother. she must do something publicly, like leading a reform or creating a disturbance.
and the only feminine autobiographies i have read were written by women who should not have done so. they have been without exception written by some ignobly good woman, with every mean and detestable use of her virtues at the expense of other people, or they were indecent exposures of moral degeneracy and neurasthenic disorders. good women cannot write their autobiographies. the poor things are inarticulate. they lack the egocentricity essential for such a[126] performance. this statement stands, even if the author eventually publishes some such looking-glass of herself.
i would not discourage any woman who is preparing to make of herself a sacrifice wholly acceptable to her husband and family, but it is my honest conviction that it will not pay her in this present world. and that she will wind up like the sundown saint of herself, respected, held in affectionate regard, maybe, but unhonored and unsung. so go ahead with your sacrifice, but do not complain about it. men, as well as gods, accept sacrifices, but they rarely ever return the compliment.
helen cutter belonged to this class. the first years of her marriage passed happily enough. she was not too good. she was often exacting in her pretty, soft, white way. but she always produced this impression of whiteness and simplicity. she was in the confidence of her husband to this extent, she knew how rapidly he was forging ahead in business. she marveled at the swiftness with which he turned over money and doubled it. and she never questioned his methods.
then the time came when business engrossed him to the exclusion of every other interest. he[127] was obliged to make frequent trips to money markets in the east and the west. he began to be hurried, preoccupied, irritable.
this is the history of many successful men in the married relation. it usually results in the wife’s finding another life of her own, in her children, in social diversions or some other activity. cutter wished for this solution for his wife. he provided her amply with funds. but it seemed that she did not know how to spend money foolishly. she was invincibly moral about everything. she performed her tea-party duties at regular intervals without any distinction as a hostess, paid a few calls and remained a “home body.”
she perceived the change in her husband. he was not now the man she had married. he was no longer even of her class. she could not keep up with him. she knew that she was not even within speaking distance of him, because she could not talk of the things he talked about. finances, big enterprises, the plays in new york, life in new york. the one bond which might have held them did not exist. she had no children.
