sometime after midnight helen stirred herself, much as if she was awaking early in the morning with a busy day before her. she stood up, stared about her in the shadowy room, moved to the windows and pulled down all the shades. then she turned on the lights. she stood directly beneath the chandelier, lifted her hand to her head, unpinned her hair, skewed it up tightly and pinned it like a harsh duty on the back of her head. it was perfectly evident that she had made up her mind to do something, and to do it thoroughly. she had a sort of merciless house-cleaning expression.
she glanced around the room, reached for two cutter photographs on the mantel, removed a recent excellent likeness of her husband from a frame on the piano and left the room, carrying these things in her hand and the frames under her arm. she paused long enough in the back hall to lay the frames on the bottom step of the attic stairs. then she went out on the back porch and dropped the photographs down the cellar steps.
she walked briskly back to her own room. for[183] the next hour she went through the house—drawers, closets and trunks—like the fine-toothed-comb of femininity, her cheeks scarlet, her lips primped purposefully, her eyes wide and busy, like the condemning eyes of a censor who is determined to leave nothing that should be cut out, removed and destroyed. from time to time she issued forth, her arms laden with somebody’s worldly goods, obviously a man’s things, to toss them down the cellar stairs and return for more. finally she came out with a shaving brush, the cord of a bathrobe and an old four-in-hand tie, evidently the last gleanings.
she descended the stairs, clearing the steps as she went of shirts, collars, trousers, dress suits, overcoats, hats, brushes, shoes, slippers, pajamas, even buttons. she worked hurriedly, cramming this mass of clothing into the hot air furnace. she struck a match to these things, watched the flame creep greedily along the sleeve of a fine white shirt and lick the broadcloth back of a tuxedo coat. then she closed the door, went back upstairs, took a glance around, to make sure that everything was in its usual order, withdrew at last to her own room, undressed, let down her hair, braided it, turned out the light and went to bed.
[184]she could hear the furnace roaring below. she hoped all that inflammable stuff would not set the roof on fire. that is to say, she did not want to attract attention by the burning of her house. otherwise she was indifferent about what might happen. if only she might escape notice for a while, until she could adjust herself to this horror! in spite of the closed registers, a strong odor of burning wool filled the house. she got up and raised the windows. she hoped the scent would be gone before maria and buck came in the morning. then she rested, as one does after accomplishing something that must be done, no matter how unhappy one is.
at seven o’clock she heard stirrings in the kitchen as usual, but no voices. this was not as usual, because there was always the subdued rumble of conversation between these two servants early in the morning. but she did not notice it. she rang for maria and informed her that she would take her breakfast in bed. she had never done this before; still maria showed no signs of surprise. she rolled her eyes and sniffed the air of this house, which did not smell pure and undefiled. she was in such a state of suppressed excitement that she could barely wait to get back to the kitchen to whisper the news[185] to buck, who was just coming up the stairs from the basement where he had been to interview the furnace. servants are the scavengers of all domesticity, especially of wrecked domesticity.
for the next three days helen remained in bed. she was not ill; but she was not able to face life on her feet. when your whole existence has been absorbed by the life of another person—his will, his desires and his habits have determined your every act—it is not so easy to have freedom and the pursuit of your own happiness suddenly thrust upon you. it is necessary to acquire new motives and new interests.
besides, helen was obliged to face the humiliation of her abandonment. so, as i have said, she remained in bed, very quiet, very pale, very submissive to maria’s ministrations. when she was alone, she lay for hours scarcely moving, strangely abstracted. no doubt we come somewhat after this fashion always into the next existence. one thing was certain: the burden of her thoughts was not her recreant husband, else there would have been tears, anguish, fever and presently the doctor in attendance.
a great grief may be a great exaltation. helen had this high look when maria brought her breakfast tray in on the fourth morning. she was not[186] merry; she had nothing to say; but she had arrived somewhere in her mind. it was obvious even to maria that her mistress was about to do something. she wanted to know what day of the month this was, as a person who has been deliriously ill always asks about the time of day when he recovers consciousness.
maria told her that this was the fifth.
“of what month?” was the astonishing next question.
“august, miss helen.”
“oh, yes, of course,” she returned, apparently gratified that this was still august. “tell buck to bring the car around at ten o’clock,” she said.
“she’s come out of her swoon, buck, and wants you to have the car ready at ten,” was the news maria carried back to the kitchen.
“whar is we gwine?” he asked.
“i dunno. but ef i knows miss helen like i thinks i does, they ain’t gwine to be no grass growin’ under your feet no time soon.”
she was polishing mrs. cutter’s pumps during this conversation. now she started back with them. she was about to lay her hand upon the knob of helen’s door when she stiffened, turned her head to one side and listened. the sound of a voice issued through this door, one voice,[187] helen’s. she was alone in there with her god, but it was obvious to maria that this was not any woman’s praying voice. neither were the astounding words she heard suitable for prayer.
the fat old negress bent, laid her ear against the keyhole, rolled her eyes and listened. then, as if she could not bear the amazement of what she heard, she flew back to the kitchen, caught hold of the astonished buck and moaned: “oh, my lord; oh, my lord! and her a white ’oman!”
“what’s de matter wid you, gal?” he demanded, shaking himself from her grasp and staring at her.
she refused to tell him. she implied that such information as she had might cost them both their innocent lives, if she should repeat it.
“you don’t know nothin’, and you ain’t heard nothin’,” he retorted, going out, pausing at the door long enough to point at the pumps which she still held in her hand. “you better take dem shoes to miss helen, er she’ll be tellin’ you somethin’,” he warned her.
shortly after ten o’clock mrs. george william cutter appeared at the shannon national bank. she wanted to look at some papers in her safety deposit box, she told the cashier.
she remained a long time closeted with this[188] box. when she came out she carried a sheaf of coupons in her hand; and she was very pale, not gratified as a woman should look under these circumstances. beneath the coupons there was a check, drawn on a new york bank for ten thousand dollars and signed by her husband. this check lay on top when she opened the box; attached to it was a note stating with studied brevity that this sum, including interest, was the amount she inherited from her mother’s estate, which he “herewith returned.” it began, “dear helen,” and was signed, “george,” with no softening, affectionate prefix.
it was this note, not the clipping of her coupons, that had detained helen so long in the little dark anteroom of the vault. there was no date, but from the date on the check, she perceived that it had been made on the tenth of july, when george had been in shannon for a week. as early as that, then, he had contemplated this separation! he was planning this spurious honesty, paying back the money she had advanced him years ago for his first adventure in stocks while he cheated her of his love and her dignity as a wife. when you think about this, it is always some relatively insignificant thing that excites your most lasting contempt. so, now cutter fell[189] to the nadir of his wife’s regard. she was obliged to remain in this little closet of the vault after she had finished everything, endeavoring to compose herself before she dared meet the scrutiny of the eyes outside. we do this so often when really no one takes particular notice of us.
it was the merest accident that arnold, the new president, was coming in and caught sight of her as she was leaving the wicket after depositing the check and the amount of the coupons to her account.
he greeted her effusively. “you are looking well,” he informed her.
she knew that she was not, but she told him, yes, she was very well.
“and how’s cutter?” smiling as a man does when he thinks he has introduced an agreeable topic.
she said that she had not heard from mr. cutter since he returned to new york.
“busy man! busy man! goes at everything like a house afire. you will have to take care of him, mrs. cutter, or he’ll break down, go smash one of these days.”
she made no reply, merely swept her glance over arnold’s shoulder toward the door.
“we were sorry to lose him as president of[190] this bank. his resignation came as a complete surprise. and now i suppose we shall be losing you. you will join him in new york, of course.”
“no,” she answered steadily. she had resolved to tell no lies and to make no explanations.
“keep your home here then! well, that’s good news. means cutter’s anchored in shannon, after all. he’ll be dropping in on us here at the bank when he comes down; be mighty glad to see him.”
she said she did not know, bade him good morning and went out.
arnold stood watching her through the window until she stepped into the car. then he turned to the cashier. “nice woman, mrs. cutter, but—well, she’s not vivacious, is she?” he said, grinning.
“i have often wondered how a man like cutter came to choose such a wife,” the cashier returned with a slower grin.
“wasn’t a man like cutter is now when he courted her. young fellow; i remember him well; had a fine physical sense of himself. nobody suspected he would ever develop the money-making talents of a wolf in the market then. fell in love with a pretty girl. she was the prettiest[191] thing in shannon. married her. that’s how it happened,” arnold explained.
“seems to have turned out all right.”
“never heard anything to the contrary; but you can’t tell. something is in the wind. i thought mrs. cutter looked pretty shaky this morning. had a sort of dying gasp in her eye. pale, noncommittal. couldn’t get a darn thing out of her about cutter. but she may be trained that way. wives of great men often remind us that what’s husband’s business is none of our business,” he laughed. “cutter’s a sort of cheap great man. how much did she deposit?” lowering his voice.
“fifteen thousand.”
“open account?”
the cashier nodded.
arnold whistled.
“show’s cutter trusts her, anyhow.”
“shows she’s not being guided by her husband’s advice, or she’d never keep that much money idle,” arnold retorted.
as things turned out, however, this was the busiest money in shannon that autumn. it was spent with amazing swiftness at a time when the war extravagance of our government had already set the pace for reckless spending.
[192]a situation frequently develops under our very eyes, and we have no suspicion of it. the fact is, most situations that develop into sensations begin this way. then we discover that what has happened had been “going on” a long time. otherwise, i ask you how should we obtain those breathless sensations with which the press and society nourish our groggy minds? it is the unexpected that stirs and animates our greedy, pop-eyed interest in life, especially the other fellow’s life.
i will not go so far as to say that helen acted from design, for she was the least devious or designing woman i ever knew; but she must have counted on the probability that some time must elapse before the breach between cutter and herself could be suspected in shannon. his absence would not be significant, because his business interests in new york had kept him away from home most of the time for a year. the war, the violent emotions and the terrific demands it imposed had unsettled all life.
people who never left home arose and flew this way and that, like flocks of distracted birds. old maids with dutiful domestic records, suddenly laid aside their darning gourds and church work and sailed for france, went into canteens[193] and became the honorable mothers of whole regiments. young girls did likewise, and earned for themselves distinctions that will become a heritage to womankind, all mordant-tongued gossips to the contrary notwithstanding. in shannon the women worked like bees. if you paid your red cross assessments, turned in sweaters and wash rags for the soldiers in france, no further notice was taken of you. because all womanly interests and affections were centered on these boys in france.
helen made her contributions to these enterprises, bought a few bonds and disappeared before the middle of october. the inference was that she had joined her husband in new york. the shannon sentinel so stated in a brief local on no better authority than that the editor had seen her board the express one evening. passengers bound for new york always took this train. and where else could mrs. cutter be going when every finger of your imagination pointed to new york and her husband as her logical and legitimate destination?
this long-legged logical faculty, directed by imagination, is responsible for much that is fictitious in current gossip and even in written records; witness, for example, that master work of fiction,[194] mr. h. g. wells’ “outline of history.” it is logical, convincing, and much of it is based upon the most entrancing interpretation of rocks, fossils and bones—which does not prove anything except that the sciences of geology, anthropology and the rest of them are bright-eyed sciences, full of delightfully imaginary conclusions. while it may all be the truth, we do not know that it is true, and mr. wells cannot prove that it is. meanwhile, if we could exercise as much faith and imagination toward god and the future as he has shown in revealing the paleozoic and previous periods in the past, somebody would be born presently fledged with wings and a skyward mind.
but, all that aside, what i set out to tell was that helen did not go to new york and that she did not return to shannon until the beginning of the following year.
shortly after her departure, a tall, dark young man with high black hair, who carried his head bare, apparently out of deference to or pride in this hair, descended from the morning train at shannon. he was accompanied by an ordinary looking man, apparently of the higher artisan class. the two of them entered a taxi and disappeared out wiggs street.
no notice would ever have been taken of them,[195] if they had not been seen at a distance, standing in front of the cutter residence, staring at it, gesticulating, evidently engaged in fervid conversation, moving from one side of the lawn to the other to stare again, talk and swing up high gestures at this little, low, white setting hen of a house, as if it was of the uttermost importance to do something about it.
mrs. flitch watched these two strangers until she reached a certain conclusion. then she went to the telephone and called mrs. shaw. she asked her if she had heard that the cutter home was to be sold.
mrs. shaw replied that she had not; but that she knew mrs. cutter had stored all her furniture and things in the barn before she left.
mrs. flitch said, well, that settled it. they were evidently about to sell the place. some men were out there looking at it now. no, strangers. she had seen them pass just after the morning train from atlanta came in. real-estate men, probably. she said she knew all the time that the place would be sold. the wonder to her was that helen had stayed out there so long, with her husband practically living in new york. and so on and so forth until they reached the usual discussion of red cross supplies.
[196]a few days later the ordinary man of the artisan type returned to shannon with a roll of blue print under his arm. the next thing shannon knew the roof was off the cutter house and there was a corps of workmen out there, spreading wings to it, putting on another story and setting up magnificent columns in front to support the coronet-countenance of this house. and from the awful rumpus going on within, it was evident that partitions were being torn out and elegant changes being made.
there was no creel to censor news in shannon. rumors started and turned back, or rumors died during a liberty loan drive. finally, it was settled that the cutters had not sold their place, but that they were spending a fortune rebuilding it. they were not obliged to count the costs, even during these strenuous times when the price of labor and materials were beyond the reach of most people. they had plenty of money and no children. still, a display of wealth at such a time was certainly in bad taste. had anybody heard a word from helen since she went to new york? this query went the rounds of the red cross room late in november. no one had heard from helen. mrs. arnold said that her husband had received one or two letters from mr. cutter[197] on matters of business. she understood that mr. cutter had some kind of government contract and was making a great deal of money.
mrs. flitch tossed her little gray head, snapped her black eyes and said she supposed the cutters would come back now and then, with their maids and butlers and valets and fancy dogs, and quarantine themselves in this fine house and refer to the people of shannon as the “natives.” if they did, it would make no difference to her. she had known the cutters since george cutter’s father and mother came to shannon and lived in a three-room house, and maggie cutter did her own work. and she lived next door to the adamses for twenty years. helen was nobody but the daughter of sam adams who was a carpenter, and she never would be anything else to her.
mrs. shaw said if it had been her house she would not have painted it colonial yellow. but she admitted the tall white columns “set it off.”
mrs. arnold said she and mr. arnold had strolled out there on the last bank holiday. they had gone through the house, because they expected to build and wanted “ideas.” the rooms were large now, lofty ceilinged; and the walls were beautiful. she had been especially impressed[198] with the big room added on the west side. “it is different from the others which are done in a misty gray with the woodwork finished in old ivory. they are elegant and sober. but this one is not sober, very bright.”
“probably the ball room,” mrs. flitch suggested.
mrs. arnold glanced up from the bandage, she was rolling. “no,” she said, “i am sure it is not a ball room, because it opens into the one mrs. cutter has reserved for herself, they told me. the decorations—are unusual. i was surprised.”
this was as far as she got. she had a neat little mind and only gossiped like a perfect lady, which is a very fine art. still, she thought it interesting, if not sensational in a pleasant way, that this room had a decoration of mother goose pictures around the top of it—all the literature of infancy illustrated there, in fact, from this wandering goose mounting a highly ornamental staircase to the lurid cow with exalted tail in the act of jumping over the moon. and she was glad mrs. cutter had “this” to look forward to after so many years. a woman without children was to be pitied.
then helen cutter came home late in january, quite unobtrusively and alone. no maid, no[199] wig-tailed man servant, no fancy dog. evidently mr. cutter was still in new york.
but rich people continually did queer things that other people could not afford to do. from that point of view everything looked all right. their wives went about the world alone, and their husbands frequently did business in some other part of the world. no one in shannon suspected that the relations between helen and her husband were even strained. they merely heard that she had “come down” to superintend the furnishing of her new house, that she had engaged an interior decorator for this purpose, that a great many fine things had been shipped in, and that she was having some of the best pieces of her golden oak done over for her own room. these pieces were painted gray and delicately ornamented with tiny wreaths of flowers. as it turned out, however, most of this old stuff was used to furnish that large, bright and sprightly room with the mother goose wall paper.
as usual, helen saw little of her neighbors. the weather was bad; her house was topsy-turvy; she was very busy; and she had an established reputation for reserve. still, they met her here and there on the street, in the shops, in passing. and once shortly after her return she had paid[200] a brief visit to the red cross rooms to deliver her quota of sweaters. she would have remained longer: she craved the comradeship of these women whom she had known all her life, but the consciousness of her humiliation, yet unknown to them, affected her courage.
sometimes the woman who has fallen secretly avoids her friends and acquaintances, because she knows that to keep up relations is a form of cheating, for which she will be the more severely punished when her deflection is known. i suppose helen, who had every virtue, felt the impending mortification of her situation, when it became known in shannon that her husband had deserted her.
she came in, wearing a plain, long coat with a fine fur collar and a close-fitting fur hat. she was received cordially and a place was made for her at the long table where the bandages were being rolled. she sat on the edge of her chair, as if she must be going presently. she was not smiling. she appeared years younger, and there was a lost look in her blue eyes which no one noticed.
she took off her coat, in response to mrs. shaw’s invitation; but she had only a moment to stay, slipping off this garment and revealing her[201] figure slender as a pencil in a blue frock of some smooth stuff smartly buttoned to her chin.
“we are glad to see you back here, helen,” mrs. shaw said.
helen said “thank you” for the simple reason that she could not pretend to be glad of anything. a mania for veracity makes you inelastic, uncouth and ungraceful socially.
mrs. flitch asked her when she was expecting “george.” it was a shot in the dark, and she did not mean it. but she was a woman whose very instinct could aim accurately at your vulnerable point.
“i am not expecting mr. cutter at all,” helen replied.
mrs. flitch had to take this answer, which was too frank to excite suspicion. but she did want to know if helen expected to make her home in new york. “i suppose you will only come here now and then,” she suggested, looking over the top of her glasses at her victim.
“i shall never live in new york. my home is here,” helen answered, with the air of a person who would do this, but would not discuss her plans.
she was one of those human “short circuits” who drops the periods in conversations and compels[202] you to start another sentence on another topic. these women went back to the perpetual discussions that raged at that time in every red cross working room, about the specifications for wounded soldiers’ dressing gowns. mrs. so-and-so’s work had been returned, because she had put too many pockets—or not enough pockets—on the gowns she had made.
mrs. flitch had suffered the outrage of having two sweaters returned because she had finished them around the bottom with a fancy rib stitch. “as if that made any difference. there is too much red tape in these red cross regulations,” she exclaimed. “they obstruct us more in the work than the wire entanglements in france obstruct the advance of the german army.”
this was not true, but it was so aptly put that a murmur of sympathetic comment followed while needles flew and threads snapped.
mrs. flitch was so fluffed up by this involuntary vote of confidence in her rib stitch and her point of view that she turned to helen and asked her if she did not “think so too.”
helen answered no, she did not think so, because then everybody would follow their own fancies in the making of these supplies, and there would be no system.
[203]mrs. flitch’s needle flickered like a tiny spear as she hoisted it with a jerk, bent over and bit off her thread as if this thread was the head of an enemy.
another “short circuit”! another fuse of conversation burned out! tongues flew like babbling wings to cover the breach. mrs. flitch sat drawn up and reared back, cheeks reddening as if a wasp had stung her in the face.
helen was like a tactless person who contributes an adverse opinion upon stepmothers in a company where several eminently respectable ladies have married widowers with children. she felt the sparks about her, but she was not dismayed. she did not care how mrs. flitch felt. she had reached that invulnerable stage of indifference arrived at only through great suffering or moral abandonment. in either case, it is always a state of mental courage.
mrs. arnold was chairman of the red cross chapter in shannon. she sat at the head of the work table during these snapped-off conversations, discreetly silent. she was pursuing her own train of thought. helen stood up presently to put on her coat. she regarded this supple, wisp-waisted woman with secret amazement. for she was the only one there who had seen the nursery decorations[204] in that new west wing room of the cutter residence. her mind worked like the nose of a rabbit at helen, as the latter took her departure.
the consensus of opinion after she went out was that she had “changed,” with mrs. flitch in the minority. she said she could not see any difference. “she’s only changed her ugly gray coat and blue hat for a good-looking coat and fur hat.” this was all that was said about her. gossip, if you remember, was much neglected during this period. we indulged in it briefly and went back to the transfiguring sensations of our martial emotions.
