CHAPTER IV
The weeks went on, and James led the same life with practically no variation. The sense of a mystery or mysteries about the house never left him, and it irritated him. He was not curious; he did not in the least care to know in what the mystery consisted, but the fact of concealment itself was obnoxious to him. As for himself, he never concealed anything, and when it came to mystery, he had a vague idea of something shameful, if not criminal. Doctor Gordon's incomprehensible changes of mood, of almost more than mood, of character even, disturbed him. Why a man should be one hour a country buffoon, the next an absorbed gentleman, he could not understand. And he could not understand also why Clemency had never left the house since he had met her on the day of his arrival. She evidently was herself angry and sulky at being housed, but she did not attempt to resist, and whenever Mrs. Ewing expressed anxiety about her health, she laughed it off, and made some [pg 078] excuse, such as the badness of the roads, or some Christmas work which she was anxious to finish. However, at last Mrs. Ewing's concern grew so evident that Doctor Gordon at dinner one day gave what seemed a plausible reason for Clemency remaining indoors. "If you will have it, Clara," he said, "Clemency has a slight pain in her side, and pleurisy and pneumonia are all about, and I told her that she had better take no chances, and the weather has been raw."
Mrs. Ewing turned quite white. "Oh, Tom," she murmured, "why didn't you tell me?"
"I did not tell you, Clara dear, because you would immediately have had the child in a galloping consumption, and it is really nothing at all. I only want to be on the safe side."
"It is a very little pain, mother dear," said Clemency. When Clemency spoke to Mrs. Ewing, her voice had a singing quality. At such times, although the young man's very soul was possessed of the mother, he could not help viewing the daughter with favor. But he was puzzled about the pleurisy. The girl seemed to him entirely well, although she was losing a little of her warm [pg 079] color from staying indoors. Still, after all, a pain is as invisible as a spirit. Her friend, Annie Lipton, spent a few days with her, and then James saw very little of Clemency. The two girls sat together in Clemency's room, and only the Lord of innocence and ignorance knew what they talked about. They talked a great deal. James, whenever he was in the house, was conscious of the distant murmur of their sweet young voices, although he could not distinguish a word. Annie Lipton was a prettier girl than Clemency, though without her personal charm. Her beauty seemed to abash her, and make her indignant. She was a girl who should have been a nun, and viewed love and lovers from behind iron bars. She treated James with exceeding coolness.
"Annie Lipton is an anomaly," Doctor Gordon remarked once over his after-dinner pipe, when they sat in the study listening to the feminine murmur on the other side of the wall. It sounded like the gentle ripple of a summer sea.
"Why?" returned James.
"She defies her sex," replied Doctor Gordon, "and still there is nothing mannish about her. She is a woman angry and ashamed at [pg 080] her womanhood. If she ever marries, it will be at the cost of a terrible mental struggle. There are women-haters among men, and there are a very few—so few as to rank with albinos and white blackbirds in scarcity—man-haters among women. Annie is a man-hater."
"She is very pretty, too," said James.
"If you attempt the conquest, I'll warn you there will be scaling ladders and all the ancient paraphernalia of siege needed," said Doctor Gordon laughingly. James colored.
"It may be that I am a woman-hater," he replied, and looked very young. Doctor Gordon again laughed.
A little later they went to Georgie K.'s. They went nearly every evening while Annie Lipton was with Clemency. After she had left they did not go so often. "It is pretty dull for Clemency," Doctor Gordon would say, and they would remain at home and play whist with the two ladies. James began to be quite sure that Doctor Gordon's visits to Georgie K.'s were mostly made when Mrs. Ewing looked worse than usual and did not eat her dinner. James became convinced in his own mind that Mrs. Ewing was not well, although he never dared broach the subject [pg 081] again to the doctor, and although it made no difference whatever in his own attitude toward her. As well might he have turned his back upon the Venus, because of some slight abrasion which her beautiful body had received from the ages.
But one day, having come in unexpectedly alone, he found her on the divan in the living-room, evidently weeping, and his heart went out to her. He flung himself down on his knees beside her.
"Oh, what is it? What is the matter?" he whispered.
Her whole body was writhing. She uncovered her eyes and looked at him pitifully, and yet with a certain dignity. Those beautiful eyes, brimming with tears, were not reddened, and their gaze was steady. "If I tell you, will you keep my secret?" she whispered back, "or, rather, it is not a secret since Doctor Gordon knows it. I wish he did not, but will you keep your knowledge from him?"
"I promise you I will," said James fervently.
"I am terribly ill," said Mrs. Ewing simply. "I suffer at times tortures. Don't ask me what the matter is. It is too dreadful, and although I have no reason to feel so, it [pg 082] seems to me ignominious. I am ashamed of being so ill. I feel disgraced by it, wicked." She covered her face again and sobbed.
"Don't, don't," said James, out of his senses completely. "Don't, I can't bear it. I love you so. Don't! I will cure you."
"You cannot. Doctor Gordon does not admit that my case is hopeless, but he gives no hope, and you must have noticed how he suffers when he sees me suffer. He runs away from me because he can do nothing to help me. That is the worst of it all. I could bear the pain for myself, but for the others, too! Oh, I wish there was some little back door of life out of which one could slip, and no blame to anybody, in a case like this. But there is nothing but the horrible front door, which means such agony to everybody who is left, as well as the one that goes." Mrs. Ewing had completely lost control of herself. She sobbed again and moaned.
James covered one of her cold hands with kisses. "Don't, don't," he begged. "Don't, I love you."
Suddenly Mrs. Ewing came to the comprehension of what he said. She looked at his bent head—James had a curly head like a boy's—and a strange look came into her eyes, [pg 083] as if she were regarding him across an immeasurable gulf. Nobody had ever seemed quite so far away in the world as this boy with his cry of love to the woman old enough to be his mother. It was not the fact of her superior age alone, it was her disease, it was her sense of being done forever with anything like this that gave her, as it were, a view of earth from outside, and yet she had a sense of comfort. James was even weeping. She felt his tears on her hand. It did her good that anybody could love her so little as to be able to stay by and see her suffer, and weep for her, and not rush forth in a rage of misery like Thomas Gordon. In a second, however, she had command of herself. She drew her hand away. "Doctor Elliot," she said, "you forget yourself."
"No, no, I don't," protested James. "It is not as if I—I were thinking of you in that way. I am not. I know you could not possibly think of me as a girl might. It is only because I love you. I have never seen anybody like you."
"You must put me out of your head," said Mrs. Ewing. "I am old enough to be your mother; I am ill unto death. You must not love me in any way."
"I cannot help it"
Mrs. Ewing hesitated. "I have a mind to tell you something," she said in a low voice. "Can I rely upon you?"
"I would die before I told, if you said I was not to," cried James.
"It might almost come to that," said the woman gravely. "A very serious matter is involved, otherwise there would not be this secrecy. I cannot tell you what the matter is, but I can tell you something which will cure you of loving me."
"I don't want to be cured," protested James, "and I have told you it is a love like worship, it is not—"
Mrs. Ewing interrupted him. "The worship of a young man is not to be trusted," she said. "I cannot have you made to suffer. I will tell you, but, remember, if you betray me you will do awful harm. Neither the doctor nor Clemency even must know that I tell you. The doctor knows, of course, the secret; Clemency does not know, and must never know. It would be the undoing of all of us, the terrible undoing, if this were to get out, but I will tell you. You are a good boy, and you shall be spared needless pain. Listen." She leaned forward and whispered close to [pg 085] his ear. James started back, and stared at her as white as death. Mrs. Ewing smiled. "It hurts a little, I know," she said, "but better this now than worse later. You are foolish to feel so about me; you were at a disadvantage in coming here. It is only right that you should know. Now never speak to me again about this. Think of me as your friend, and your friend who is in very great suffering and pain, and have sympathy for me, if you can, but not so much sympathy that you too will suffer. I want sympathy, but not agony like poor Tom's. That makes it harder for me."
"Does she know?" asked James, half-gasping.
"You mean does Clemency know I am ill?"
"Yes."
"She knows I am ill. She does not know how terrible it is. You must help me to keep it from her. I almost never give way when she is present. I knew she was taking a nap this afternoon, and the pain was so awful. It is better now. I think I will go to my room and lie down for a while." Mrs. Ewing rose, and extended her hand to James. "I have forgotten already what you told me," she said.
"I can never forget!"
"You must, or you must go away from here."
"I can never forget, but it shall be a thing of the past," said James.
"That is right," Mrs. Ewing said with a maternal air. "It will only take a little effort. You will see."
She went out of the room with a flounce of red draperies, and left James. He sat down beside a window and stared out blankly. The thought came to him, how many avowals of love and deathless devotion such a woman must have listened to. Her manner of receiving his made him think that there had been many. "It is quite proper," he thought to himself. "A woman like that is born to be worshiped." Then he thought of what she had told him, and a sort of rage filled his heart. He recognized the fact that she had been right in her estimation of the worship of a young man. He is always trying to turn his idol into clay.
The door opened and Clemency entered, but he did not notice it. She came and sat down in front of him, and looked angrily at him, then for the first time he saw her. He rose. "I beg your pardon, I did not hear you come in," he said.
"Sit down again," said Clemency pettishly. "Don't be silly. I am used to having young men not see anybody but my mother when she comes into a room, and it is quite right, too. I don't think there ever was a woman so beautiful as she, do you?"
"No, I don't," replied James.
Clemency eyed him keenly. Then she blushed at the surmise which came to her, and James also blushed at the knowledge of the surmise. "You can't be much older than I am. I am twenty-three," said Clemency after a while. Then the red suffused her very throat.
"I am twenty-three, too," said James. Then he added bluntly, for he began to be angry, "A man can think a woman the most beautiful he ever saw without—"
"Oh, I didn't think you were such a fool," said Clemency; then she added, in a meek and shamed voice, "I should have been awfully disgusted with you if you had not thought my mother the most beautiful woman you ever saw, and I am used to men not seeing me. I don't want them to. I think I feel something as Annie Lipton does about men. She says she feels as if she wanted to kill [pg 088] every man who looks at her as if he loved her. I think I should, too."
"Miss Lipton has a great many admirers," remarked James by way of changing the subject.
"Oh, yes, every young man for miles around, ever since she was grown up. She doesn't like any of them." Clemency looked at James with sudden concern. "I am going to tell you something," she said, "even if it is rather betraying confidence. I think I ought to. Annie told me she had taken a great dislike to you, from the very first moment she saw you, so it would be no use—"
"I am sorry," replied James stiffly, "but as I had no particular feeling for her, except admiration of her beauty, it makes no especial difference."
"I thought, of course, you would fall in love with her," said Clemency. Then she added, with most inexplicable inverted jealousy, "You must have very poor taste, or you would. You are the first one."
"Some one has to be first," James said, laughing.
"I don't know but I was horrid to tell you what I did," said Clemency, looking at him doubtfully.
"I don't thing it as horrid for a girl to assume that every man is in love with her friend as it would be if she assumed something else," said James. He knew that his speech was ungallant; but it seemed to him that this girl fairly challenged him to rudeness. But she looked at him innocently.
"Oh, no, I never should think that," said she. "Being with two women so very beautiful as my mother and Annie so much makes me quite sure that nobody is thinking of me. It is only sometimes that I feel a little like a piece of furniture, only chairs can't walk into rooms." She ended with a girlish laugh. Then her face suddenly sobered. "Doctor Elliot, I want you to tell me something," said she. "Uncle Tom wouldn't if I asked him, and I don't dare ask him anyway. Do you think mother is very well?"
James hesitated. "You ought to tell me," Clemency said imperatively.
"I have thought sometimes that she did not look quite well," said James.
"What do you think the matter is?"
"It may be indigestion."
"Do you think it is?"
"I don't know. Doctor Gordon has told [pg 090] me nothing, and Mrs. Ewing has told me nothing."
"I thought doctors could tell from a person's looks."
"Not always."
"Doctors aren't much good anyhow," said Clemency. "I don't care if you are one, and Uncle Tom is one. I notice people die just the same. So you think it is indigestion? Well, it may be. Mother doesn't have much appetite."
"Yes, I have noticed that," said James.
"Then there is something else I want to ask you," said Clemency. "I have a right to know if you know. What does Uncle Tom make me stay in the house so for?"
"I don't know," replied James, looking honestly at her.
"Don't you, honest? Hasn't he told you?"
"No."
"Of course, I know the first of it came from my meeting that man the day you came here, but it does seem such utter nonsense that I have to stay housed this way. I never met a man that frightened me before, and it is not likely that I shall again. It does not stand to reason that that man is hanging [pg 091] around here waiting to intercept me again. It is nonsense, but Uncle Tom won't let me stir out. He has even ordered me to keep away from the windows, and be sure that the curtains are drawn at night. I don't know what the matter is. I can't say a word about it to mother, she is so nervous. I have to pretend that I like to stay in the house, and some days I really think I am going mad for fresh air. Uncle Tom won't even let me go driving with him. So you don't know anything about it?"
"Nothing whatever."
"Well, I can't stand it much longer," said Clemency with an obstinate look. "As for the pain in my side, that's an awful lie; I haven't the ghost of a pain. I can't stand it much longer. Here's Uncle Tom. You are not going to tell him I said anything about it?"
"Of course, I am not," answered James. He began to feel that he was entangled in a web of secrecy, and his feeling of irritation increased. He would have gotten out of it and spent Christmas at his own home, but Doctor Gordon had an unusual number of patients suffering from grippe, and pneumonia was almost epidemic, and he felt that [pg 092] he should not leave. It was the second week of the new year when James, returning from a call at a near-by patient, whither he had walked, found Mrs. Ewing in the greatest distress. It was ten o'clock at night, and she was pacing the living-room. Immediately when he entered she ran to him. "Oh," she gasped, "Clemency, Clemency!"
"Why, what is it?" asked James. Clemency had not been at the dinner-table, but he had supposed her sulking, as she had been doing of late, and that she had taken advantage of Doctor Gordon's absence at a distant patient's to remain away from the table.
"She begged so hard to go out, and said the pain was quite well," gasped Mrs. Ewing, "that I said she might go and see Annie, and here it is ten o'clock at night, and Tom has gone to Grover's Corner, and may not be home until morning, and Aaron is with him, and I had no one to send. I thought I would not say anything to you. I thought every minute she would come in, and Emma has walked half a mile looking for her, and I am horribly worried."
"I will go directly and look for her," said James. "I will put the bay in the light buggy, and drive to Westover. Don't worry. I'll bring her back in half an hour."
"The bay is so lame she can't travel, I heard Tom say this morning," said Mrs. Ewing.
"Then I'll take the gray."
"She balks, you know."
James laughed. "Oh, I'll risk the balking," he said.
He hurried out to the stable and put the gray in the buggy. It was a very short time before James was on the road, and the gray went as well as could be desired, but just before she reached Westover she stopped short, and James might as well have tried to move a mountain as that animal with her legs planted at four angles of relentless obstinacy.