CHAPTER VIII
Sheila was not naturally secretive, and it was a measure of the antagonism which Ted had aroused in her that she said nothing to him of her projected visit to Alice North.
She had intended to tell him at once of Charlotte's kindly plan to interest Mrs. North in her work; she had been impatient to tell him, and her announcement of Charlotte's return, and Mrs. North's arrival with her, had been meant only as the preface to the confidence. She had been so sure of his sympathy, of his ambition for her and his pleasure in this opportunity to test her power.
His real attitude toward the achievements of women she had never suspected. He had so gladly and gratefully accepted her help in his own work, he had so generously acknowledged her ability, that she had never conceived of any sex distinction in his views. She had been his comrade—now he would be hers. And oh, she would make him proud of her! She would see his eyes light for her as, sometimes, she had seen them light over the story of men's successes. For Ted loved success.
If she looked forward to triumphs, he was always at the heart of them. Whatever she could do would be done more for his honor than for her own. Whatever was rare and fine in her she had come to value first because she was his wife—and afterward for her own profit. She imagined herself, crowned by Mrs. North's praise, returning to Ted to cry:
"It is the real, the true thing—my gift! I will do beautiful work. Oh, dearest, I have more to bring you than I dared to believe!"
So her impetuous mind had run onward to meet happy possibilities when Ted arrested it with the comment, "I don't care for that sort of woman myself—at least for that sort of married woman!" And at the words, Sheila's dreams had fallen, like broken-winged birds, to the ground.
For a moment—nay, through all the conversation that followed, a conversation that revealed to her with cruel clarity a phase of her husband's mind that she had not hitherto encountered—she was wondering if those dreams would ever rise again. Rude and stupid blows from the hand she loved best had struck them down. How could they recover themselves? How could they sing and soar—those fragile, shattered things?
But even as she glimpsed them thus, broken, defeated, there surged up within her the strength of resistance. Sweetly compliant in all the common affairs of her and Ted's joint life, she had, for this issue so vital to her, an amazing obstinacy. Defeated? She and her dreams? No! Her dreams were her own, born of her as surely as the children of her body would be. They were hers to save—hers to realize. And she was strong enough to do it!
That had been her thought when she withdrew herself from Ted's knee. His whisper—"The greatest thing that can happen to a woman is motherhood!"—had inspired no tenderness in her. For at that moment there was astir within her, violent and dominant, the impulse that is mightier than motherhood itself—the impulse of creation. And it was none the less imperative because it demanded to mould with written words rather than living flesh.
Ted's last gentle speech, his hurt expression when she turned coldly from him, moved her not at all. For the time, he was not Ted, her beloved, but Man, her enemy. True, she had not regarded man as an enemy before. Peter, for instance, had been an ally without whom she could not even have fared thus far. But Peter was not a husband; his masculinity had not been appealed to—nor threatened. She saw now that men would always fight for the mastery of their own women, would always seek to impose sex upon them as a yoke.
Ah, that black, bitter gulf of sex!
Sheila, looking into it for the first time, shuddered with revolt and rage. So this was life; this the end of such moments as her exquisite awakening to love. To this the high and heavenly raptures lured one at last! A bird in the wrong cage, impotently beating its breast against the bars—Sheila was like enough to such an one in that furious, unconsciously helpless hour.
By the next day, however, the fierce whirlwind of her astounded resentment had passed. She began to see that Ted might be the victim of his sex as she was the victim of hers; that the real tyranny was not that of Ted over her, but of Nature over them both; of Nature who would use them each with equal ruthlessness for her own purposes. But this perception did not daunt her. Unhesitatingly, she arrayed herself against Nature now; she would save her dreams even from that! And as Ted was a part of Nature's plan, she said nothing to him of her determination to fulfill herself in spite of it.
In the afternoon she set out resolutely for Charlotte's. It was summer, and Shadyville was at its fairest. As Sheila trod the wide, tree-canopied streets, with their old-fashioned houses in fragrant garden closes on either side, a hundred tiny voices whispered to her messages of peace; of life that goes on from summer to summer; of growth, in the dark and choking earth, that springs at last upward to the sun. But she did not hear. For her there was neither comfort nor peace nor any joy in the processes and victories of mere life.
When she reached the Davis house, Charlotte and Mrs. North were on the veranda, clad brightly in a summer frivolity, and their air of leisure and gayety was oddly unlike the tense and passionate mood of Sheila herself. In fact the whole scene—the porch with its fluttering awnings and festive flowers, the dainty tea-table that already awaited the guest, the two charming women presiding there—seemed far removed from the grave resolve and stormy emotions that Sheila had brought thither. For an instant, as she paused at the gate, she felt herself absurd. She had come to have afternoon tea with two women who were obviously of the big, conventional world—and she had brought her naked soul to them! Acutely self-conscious, painfully humiliated, she would have retreated if she could, but Charlotte was already hailing her. And then—her hand was clasped in Alice North's, her eyes were meeting eyes at once so probing and so luminous that they opened every door of her nature and flooded it with light.
Sheila had never had a case of hero-worship, but as she put her hand in Mrs. North's, she fell, figuratively, upon her knees. The very buoyancy and assurance of the latter's manner, which had, for an instant, chilled and rebuffed her, now appeared to her the outward manifestation of a brilliant and conquering spirit. Like a devotee, she watched Mrs. North's quick, graceful movements, her vivid, changeful face; like a devotee she listened to her sparkling, inconsequent chatter. This woman, handicapped by her womanhood, had done big things. Any word from her lips, any gesture of her hand was something to admire and remember.
It never even entered Sheila's head that, although she had done great things, Alice North might not be a great woman. It never occurred to her to ask how she had triumphed—at whose or at what cost. She never even dreamed that one's life—just a noble submission to Nature, a willing and patient compliance with laws and purposes above one's own—might be the final and fullest expression of genius. Alice North had written books—and Sheila was at her feet.
After awhile Charlotte tactfully left her alone with her idol—in whose footsteps she meant to walk henceforth—to climb!
"I've read your stories," said Mrs. North softly then. It was the first mention of Sheila's work, and the girl quivered from head to foot. She gazed mutely at the oracle—waiting for life, for death.
Suddenly Mrs. North leaned forward and caught Sheila's hands in hers. Alice North had never failed to be sensitive to drama; to play her part in it with sympathy and effect.
"My dear," she exclaimed, and her voice was clear and thrilling, "my dear, you have it—the divine gift!"
And as they looked at each other, the eyes of each filled with tears. Alice North was indeed sensitive to drama—so sensitive that her counterfeit emotions sometimes deceived even her—and Sheila was shaken to the heart, to the soul.
"You mean—you mean—that I—" began the girl brokenly.
"I mean," answered Mrs. North, "that you are already doing remarkable work—that you will go far—unless——"
"Unless what?" breathed Sheila.
"Will you let me advise you?"
"Oh, if you only will! What shall I do?" And Sheila bent trusting, obedient eyes upon her.
"Do? Dear child, I can tell you in a word. You must renounce!"
"Renounce?" repeated Sheila vaguely.
"Yes, renounce!" And Alice North turned a face of pale sacrifice upon her—with that inevitable instinct for the dramatic. Few women had renounced less than she—less, at least, of what pleased them—but at that moment, in the intensity of her artistic fervor, she believed herself an ascetic for her work's sake.
"The common lot of womanhood is not for you," she declared. "You must live for your art!" And her voice trembled with the touching earnestness that she had so easily assumed—and would as easily cast off.
To Sheila, however, there never came a doubt of Mrs. North's deep sincerity. She had listened, as if to a priestess, while the novelist proclaimed her sublime creed of renunciation, and she now offered the obstacle to it in her own situation with a sense of having fallen from grace in being thus human:
"But I'm married, you know."
"And so am I. But I am consecrated, nevertheless, to my art. And so, my dear, must you be. You must give yourself utterly,—utterly—to your art! Art won't take less. Your husband must live for you—instead of your living for him after the fashion of most wives. And you'll be worth his living for—I'm sure of that."
"I—I don't understand," faltered Sheila. "I don't understand what it is I mustn't do for Ted."
Alice North held her hands more closely and fixed her luminous eyes upon her—eyes which, to many before Sheila, had seemed to shine with the light of a beautiful soul: "You mustn't do for him the one thing that you and he will want most—you mustn't have children for him! My dear, you must be a mother with your brain—not with your body. You can't do both—at least, worthily—and you must give yourself to creation with your mind. There are women enough already to become mothers of the other sort!"
Sheila did not reply. Slowly the glow faded from her face, from her eyes. Slowly and listlessly she withdrew her hands from Mrs. North's fervid clasp and leaned back in her chair. Clearly the supreme moment had passed; the flame of her ardor had flickered out. Mrs. North glanced curiously at her. An instant before, the girl had been radiant, tremulous with aspiration and with hope. Now she was apathetic and cold, her spirit no more than a handful of ashes.
The silence lengthened—grew heavy with meaning. Alice North put out her hand again: "I trust I haven't intruded—offended?"
"Oh, no," said Sheila stiffly, "you have been very kind, and—I am sure—very wise." But her frank gaze had grown guarded; her whole manner had become that of defensive reserve.
Yes, clearly, the great moment was over; the drama was ended.
"What a queer girl," remarked Mrs. North! to Charlotte, when Sheila had gone. "I predicted a phenomenal future for her—I had her tingling to her finger tips. Then—quite suddenly—the light, the fire was quenched. And do what I would, I couldn't kindle it again. It was very strange—unless——"
"Unless——?"
"Unless she's going to have a child. I told her that she mustn't have children."
"You mean," cried Charlotte incredulously, "that you advised her to shirk the greatest experience possible to a woman? You advised her to forego that?"
But Alice North lifted her pretty brows and shrugged her histrionic shoulders with an air of fine distaste. "Really, Charlotte," she drawled, "I hadn't suspected you of being so primitive."
Walking homeward through the sweet summer dusk, Sheila was far from the listless, extinguished creature whom Alice North had described, however. Never in her life had such a tempest of emotion swept through her being. For she was face to face, at last, with life.
The first night of Ted's courtship returned to her now; she smelt the fragrance of climbing roses; she felt his head again upon her breast—the indescribable first touch of love that is unlike all others!—she heard a voice deep within her exulting: "This is life!" Ah, how ignorant she had been—how pitifully innocent! To have thought that life!
For life was a thing that laid brutal, compelling hands upon you; that destroyed you and created you again; that rent you with unspeakable pangs, with unimaginable terrors, with frantic and powerless rebellions. It was not joy; it was not peace; it was not fulfillment. It was a force. Merciless, implacable, irresistible, it seized upon you and used you. For that you were put into the world; for that you dreamed and hoped and struggled—for that moment out of an eternity, that moment of use!
As she hurried onward, stumbling now and then with a clumsiness alien to her, the sense of lying helpless in the grasp of this force almost drove her to cry out. More than once she lifted her hands to her mouth, and even then little shuddering murmurs broke from her.
Helpless? Oh, yes! yes! For that had come to her from which there was no escape. She was trapped. She, too, was to be put to use. Her own work must make way for Nature's. She saw that now.
Her own work must make way. For Alice North herself had said that one could not serve art and Nature, too—and Nature had exacted service of her. She had been strong enough to defy Ted's tyranny; but, after all, she could not defeat Nature's. Her work must make way.
She let herself noiselessly into the house. From the kitchen floated the sounds of the cook's evening activities, but otherwise the place was silent, and Ted's hat was not on its accustomed hook in the little hall. She could be alone a while.
She stole up the stairs to her bedroom, meaning to lie down in the quiet darkness, but once there, a panic assailed her, a senseless fear of the dim corners, the distorted shadows. Besides, she wanted to see herself; she wanted to see if Ted, promising her beautiful things from motherhood the night before, if Mrs. North, warning her against it to-day, had known that she—that she was going to have a child.
She turned on the lights and stood in their full glare before her mirror. Searchingly she inspected herself—the slender figure that was as yet only delicately rounded, the cheek that showed just a softer curve and bloom, the eyes——
And then she caught her breath in a sharp sob and leaned nearer to her reflection. What was it—who was it—that she saw in her eyes?
For something—some one—looked back at her that had not looked back at her before; something—some one—ineffably yearning, poignantly tender—looked back at her with the gaze of a mystery—of a miracle. It was as if, within herself, she beheld another self; and this other self was reconciled to life, was in harmony with its divine purpose. Strangely enough, at that moment, her childhood's fancy of another self recurred to her.
"Other-Sheila," she whispered, "Other-Sheila, is it you?"
While she leaned thus, waiting, perhaps, for the answer of that reflected self, she saw that Ted had opened the door behind her. For an instant their eyes met in the mirror, and with that gaze Sheila's heart suddenly fled home to him. He was the father of her child!
"Oh," she cried, turning to him with outstretched, shaking hands and quivering face, "Oh, tell it to me again! I want to believe it! Tell me again that motherhood is the greatest thing!"