JEALOUSY WITHOUT LOVE
“Did you notice, Oliver, that he spoke of my mother a little while ago?”
“Did he?”
“Certainly. You must have heard him.”
Oliver was silent. He was wondering how long that strange, unaccountable blur had lasted.
“It was the first time he has spoken of her in years,” she went on, her brow puckering. “It seemed to slip out when he wasn’t thinking, when he wasn’t on guard.”
“It slipped out because he was thinking, Jane,” said Oliver. “That’s just it. He is always thinking of her. What was it he said?”
She told him.
“I wonder if I remind him of her in lots of ways,” she mused.
Oliver’s thoughts leaped backward a score of years and more. “I used to think she was the most wonderful person in all the world,” he said. “I was very desperately in love with your mother when I was six or seven, Jane.” He hesitated and then went on clumsily, almost fatuously: “I am beginning to think that you are like her in a lot of ways.”
She gave him a quick, startled look. His face was turned away, and so he did not see the tender, wistful little smile that flickered on her lips, nor was he aware of the long, deep breath she took. From that moment a queer, uneasy restraint fell upon them. There were long silences, dreamy on her part, moody on his. He left shortly after ten; his “good night” was strangely gruff and unnatural.
He was jealous. He knew it for a fact, he confessed it to himself for the first time openly and unreservedly. He was jealous of young Lansing. There was no use trying to deny it. He did not go so far as to think of himself as being in love with Jane—that would be ridiculous, after all the years they had known each other—but he bitterly resented the thought that she might be in love with some one else. Especially with the superior, supercilious, cocksure Lansing!
Why, if she were in love with Lansing—and married him!—good Lord, what a fool he had been to think it would make no difference to him! It would make a difference—an appalling difference. All nonsense to think she wouldn’t go out of his life if she married Lansing or any one else. Of course she would. He felt a cold, clammy moisture break out all over him; a sickening sensation assailed the pit of his stomach. She would have a home in which he could be nothing more than an old friend; he would have to submit to being governed by certain conventions and by an entirely new set of conditions; her husband would have a lot to say about all that; it would mean that he couldn’t drop in every night or so for an intimate chat, that he couldn’t go strolling freely and contentedly into familiar haunts with Jane, that he couldn’t take her off for rides in his car, or up to the city to see the plays. Lansing wouldn’t stand for that! Nor would any one else! It would be the end of everything, his life would have to be reordered, his very thoughts subjected to a drastic course of inhibitions, he would have to stand afar off and wait for some other man to beckon for him to approach! Unbearable!
What was it that Sammy said—in jest, of course, but now heavy with portent? “This isn’t your night to call on Jane,” or something like that. It was Lansing’s night! The whole town knew it was Lansing’s night—and he was calling on Jane because Lansing happened to be off in the country seeing a patient.
This was what all his good offices had come to, this was what had come of his idiotic, vainglorious desire to do the right thing by Jane! He had simply let himself in for a lot of unhappiness. Strange, though, that he should be so consumed with jealousy when he wasn’t the least bit in love with Jane himself. It was absurd! Why, he had known her since the day she was born—how could he possibly be in love with her when he had known her all her life? He knew what love was—yes, indeed, he knew. He had been in love half a dozen times. He ought to know what love was—and certainly his feelings toward Jane were nothing like those he had experienced in bygone affairs of the heart. Gee whiz! What had suddenly got into him?
Suddenly it came to him that he was selfish. That’s what it was—selfishness. He did not want her himself and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of letting some one else have her. Utter selfishness! Having arrived at this conclusion he smote his conscience heroically and proclaimed to the night that he would no more be jealous. Not even of Lansing. He would go on being Jane’s friend, and Lansing’s friend, and the friend of their children, and—This brought him up with a blinding jolt. Jane’s children! And Lansing’s! Something red and strangely sustained blurred his vision.
He was oppressed by a feeling of almost intolerable loneliness as he strode down the dimly lighted street; a soft breeze blowing through the leaves of the young maples overhead suggested subdued, malicious laughter; automobile horns sounded like raucous guffaws; some blithering idiot was sounding taps on a mournful cornet far off in the night. He was going to lose Jane—he was going to lose Jane—he was going to lose Jane. Over and over again: he was going to lose Jane. Taps!
Clay Street was almost deserted. The stores were closed for the night. A few pedestrians strolled leisurely along the sidewalks; a small group of loafers in front of Jackson’s cigar store, a detached policeman, three young girls waiting on a corner, widely separated automobiles drawn up to the curb, a man studying the billboards outside the closed door of the Star Moving Picture Palace. The town clock began to strike eleven.
“Gee whiz!” sighed Oliver October, for all the world seemed as bleak to him as Clay Street was at midnight.
Not since that night in June, over a year ago, had he taken the “short cut” swamp road on his way home from Jane’s. He avoided it after dark as if it were a graveyard—and he always hurried a little in passing a graveyard at night. He had never gotten over childhood’s fear of the ghosts that were supposed to come out and wander among the cold, white tombstones. There were no tombstones along the lonely swamp road, but he had a dread of it just the same.
He sat on his porch until long past one o’clock, lonelier than he ever had been in his life. The night was warm, somber; a light wind crossing the expanse of swamp land brought a whiff of comfort and with it the incessant chatter of frogs, the doleful hoot of owls and the squawk of nightbirds prowling in the air. The house was dark, still. He felt very sorry for himself, sitting there all alone. How different it was over at Mr. Sage’s house—the friendly lights, the cozy comfort of everything, the companionship—some one to talk to and laugh with, and some one to feel sorry for him, instead of the other way about. To-morrow night would be Lansing’s night—and soon, perhaps every night.
“I ought to get married,” he mused in his dejection. “It’s the only thing. Have a wife and a home and children. But, good Lord, where am I to find a girl I’d want to be tied to all my life? I’ve had it pretty bad two or three times, but, here I am, not caring a darn about any one of ’em. I might just as well never have known them. It wasn’t the real article—not by a long shot. There are mighty few girls like Jane in this world—mighty few. The man who gets her will get one in a million. And where would a chap find a father-in-law like Uncle Herbert? It makes me sick the way Lansing twists that beastly little mustache of his and looks bored every time Uncle Herbert speaks. Funny Jane doesn’t see it and call him down for it. And why the devil doesn’t Uncle Herbert see it and tell Jane she’ll never be happy with a fellow like Lansing? Good Lord, is everybody blind but me?”
The next morning he was down at the swamp bright and early, inspecting the work of the ditchers and tile layers. The task of reclaiming the land had been under way for several months and was slowly nearing completion.
“I wish you’d change your mind about not going out any farther, Oliver,” said old John Phillips, who was superintending the work. “We could go out a quarter of a mile farther without a bit of risk, and you’d add about twenty acres of good land to—”
“We’ll have enough, John,” interrupted the young man. “We’ll stick to the original survey. Don’t go a rod beyond the stakes I set up out yonder. It may be safe but it isn’t worth while.”
“Well, you’re the boss,” grumbled old John, and added somewhat peevishly: “I’ll bet your father wouldn’t throw away twenty acres or more just because—but, as I was saying, Oliver, you’re the boss. If you say I’m not to go beyond them stakes, that settles it. But I can’t help saying I think you’re making a mistake. There’s some mighty good land there, ’spite of them mudholes a little further out.”
“I’m not denying that,” said Oliver patiently. “But we’ll stop where the stakes are, just the same.”
A few minutes later old John confided to one of the ditchers that young Baxter was considerable of a darned fool. Either that, or else he had some thundering good reason of his own for not wanting to go out beyond the stakes.
“This here job has cost up’ards of three thousand dollars already, and for a couple of hundred more he could clean up clear to the edge of the mire, and when his pa comes back—if he ever does come back—he wouldn’t have to take a tongue-lashin’ for doin’ the job half way. I used to look upon that boy as a smart young feller. And him a civil engineer besides.”
“Maybe he’s a whole lot smarter than you think,” said the ditcher significantly.
“Oh, I don’t for a minute think it’s that,” said old John hastily. “Not for a minute.”
“I can’t help thinkin’ we’ll turn up that old man’s body some day. It sort of gives me the creeps. Bringin’ up them horse’s bones last week sort of upset me. God knows what else may be out there in the mire.”
The two big ditches, fed by lateral lines of tile, held a straight course across the upper end of the swamp and drained into Blacksnake Creek, a sluggish little stream half a mile west of Rumley. Roughly estimated, three hundred acres were being transformed into what in time was bound to become valuable land. The time would come when it could be successfully and profitably tilled. Farmers who had scoffed at the outset now grudgingly admitted that “something might come of it.” A far-seeing man from the adjoining county made an offer of ten dollars an acre for the land before the work had been under way a month. He said he was taking a gambler’s chance.
Oliver was walking slowly back to the house, his head bent, his hands in his pockets, when he observed an automobile approaching over the deeply rutted, seldom traveled road. He recognized the car at once. Lansing’s yellow roadster.
He frowned. Lansing was the one person he did not want to see that morning. He had lain awake for hours, seeking for some real, definite reason for hating the man—and to save his life he couldn’t think of one! And he knew that when he looked into the young doctor’s frank, honest eyes this morning, and saw the genial, whole-hearted smile in them, and heard his cheery greeting, the elusive reason would be farther from his mental grasp than ever. He simply couldn’t help liking Lansing.
The car came into plain view around a bend in the road, and he saw that a woman sat beside the man at the wheel. His heart contracted—and as suddenly expanded. It wasn’t Jane.
“Hello, there!” called out Lansing, while still some distance away.
Oliver, peering intently through the flickering shadows of the woodland road, saw that the doctor’s companion was a stranger. A young woman—and an uncommonly pretty one he was soon to discover. He stepped off into the rank grass at the roadside and the car came to a stop. He took off his “haymaker’s” straw hat, and revealed his white teeth in the smile that no one could resist. The young woman smiled in return, and then flushed slightly.
“You’ve heard me speak of my sister, Oliver,” said Lansing, resting his elbows on the wheel. “Well, here she is. Meet Mr. Baxter, Sylvia, as we say out here. Mrs. Flame, Oliver. You needn’t be afraid of her, old man. She’s quite flameless. Got rid of him last month in Paris. Come a little closer.”
“Don’t be silly, Paul,” scolded Mrs. Flame. “Mr. Baxter may have a perfect horror of divorced women.”
“I have,” said Oliver gallantly. “I shudder every time I see one. If I hear about ’em in time, I shut my eyes so that I can’t see them. But when I’m taken by surprise like this, I stare rudely, my knees quake and I begin to pray for help. It’s queer I never feel that way about divorced men. I don’t have the slightest fear of them, no matter how big and strong and ferocious they may be. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Very,” said she, still smiling down into his eyes. “I must say, however, I don’t think you are staring rudely.”
“It’s generally conceded that he stares very handsomely,” said Lansing. “But, hop in, Oliver. I’ve been sent to fetch you over to Mr. Sage’s. He had a cablegram early this morning and sort of went to pieces. Jane sent for me. He’s all right now, but Jane says he wants to see you. She telephoned while I was there, but you were not at home.”
“A cablegram? His wife—is she dead?”
“I should say not. She’s sailing for the United States to-morrow and is coming here to live!”
“Good God!” burst involuntarily from Oliver’s lips.
“It’s knocked the old boy silly,” was Lansing’s brief and professional explanation. “Climb in here beside Sylvia—plenty of room if we squeeze. Get your leg over a little, Sylvia. That’s all right. Shall we stick to this road, Oliver, or go back to the—”
“It gets better a little farther on,” said Oliver, dazed. “All the hauling has been at this end. My Lord! No wonder he’s knocked out. Coming here to live? Why—why, he hasn’t seen her since Jane was a baby. What’s the matter with her? Sick?”
“I don’t think so. Unless you can see something ominous in the last line of her cablegram. She winds it up with ‘dying to see you.’ Strikes me she’s been a long time dying. They say she turned this burg upside down when she first came here. Do you remember her, Oliver?”
“I should say I do,” cried Oliver. “I adored her. I say, this must mean that she’s going to leave the stage, give up acting. She was famous over there. Why, only a couple of years ago, she made a great hit in a new play over in London. I tried to get across from France to see her in it, but it couldn’t be managed. Just after the Armistice, you see. I asked a good many British officers about her. They said she was tophole, all of ’em crazy about her. I can’t understand it, Doc. Coming here to Rumley to live? Gee whiz!”
“I saw her in a play called ‘Rosalind,’ ” said Mrs. Flame. “Several years ago. It’s by Shakespeare. My husband said she certainly was worth seeing. Heavens, Paul, take these ruts slowly. You’re jolting my head off.”
After a long silence: “When did you get here, Mrs. Flame?” inquired Oliver briskly.
“Last night. Paul met me in Hopkinsville. I came direct from New York. My home is in New York City, you know. I’ve never been in Rumley before. We were living in Indianapolis when I was married. That was seven years ago. Seems seven hundred. Now you know almost all there is to know about me.”
Oliver was staring straight ahead. He was wondering if “Aunt Josephine” could still turn “cart wheels,” and make up funny songs, and dance on the tips of her toes. Hardly. She must be over fifty. Then he came out of his momentary abstraction and politely asked Mrs. Flame when she had arrived in Rumley.
“I mean,” he stammered, “how long do you expect to be here?”
“Ten days, or two weeks at the longest,” she replied. “I am joining a house party at Harbor Point.”
“Good!” he exclaimed, and then as she looked at him quickly: “I mean, I’m glad you’re going to be here that long. By George, this will make a thundering difference in the lives of Mr. Sage and Jane. Is—is Jane excited, Doc?”
“Nothing like the old man. He keeps saying over and over again, with a smile that won’t come off, that if you pray long enough and hard enough, you’ll get your wish, or something like that.”
“What does he want to see me about?”
“Search me. Ouch! Excuse me, Sylvia. I didn’t see it.”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I’m used to hard knocks,” gasped the young woman.
Oliver turned his head to look at her. She was very pretty and very smart looking in the little brown hat that sat jauntily upon her yellow, beautifully coifed hair. Very trig, too. About thirty-two or-three, he hazarded. Fine eyes—a trifle pained at present, but fine, just the same. He found himself wondering if Jane was as pretty as Lansing’s sister—and suddenly it occurred to him that Jane had her “lashed to the mast”—absolutely!
The road got better. “Your ears must have burned last night, Mr. Baxter,” she said.
He started guiltily. “How—what for?” he stammered.
“Old Paul here did nothing but talk about you all the way down from Hopkinsville. I don’t see how you’ve done it. He’s usually quite a snob, you know. I’ve never known him to like anybody but himself before. You must be either superlatively good or superlatively bad. Which is it?”
“Depends entirely on which you prefer, Mrs. Flame,” said Oliver coolly.
“I guess that’ll hold you, Syl,” cried Lansing.
Oliver groaned inwardly. It was getting more difficult every minute to hate the fellow.