Chains

by Theodore Dreiser

I

What had given him his first hint that all might not be as well at home as he imagined was the incident of the automobile. Up to that time he had not had a troubled thought about her, not one. But after—Well, it was a year and a half now and although suspicion still lingered it was becoming weaker. But it had not been obliterated even though he could not help being fond of Beryl, especially since they had Tickles to look after between them. But anyhow, in spite of all his dark thoughts and subtle efforts to put two and two together, he had not been able to make anything of it. Perhaps he was being unjust to her to go on brooding about it.... But how was it possible that so many suspicious-looking things could happen in a given time, and one never be able to get the straight of them?

The main thing that had hampered him was his work. He was connected with the Tri-State Paper Company, at the City Order desk, and as a faithful employé he was not supposed to leave during working hours without permission, and it was not always easy to get permission. It was easy to count the times he had been off—once to go to the dentist, and two or three times to go home when Beryl was ill. Yet it just happened that on that particular afternoon his superior, Mr. Baggott, had suggested that he, in the place of Naigly who always attended to such matters but was away at the time, should run out to the Detts-Scanlon store and ask Mr. Pierce just what was wrong with that last order that had been shipped. There was a mix-up somewhere, and it had been impossible to get the thing straight over the telephone.

Well, just as he was returning to the office, seated in one of those comfortable cross seats of the Davenant Avenue line and looking at the jumble of traffic out near Blakely Avenue, and just as the car was nearing the entrance to Briscoe Park he saw a tan-and-chocolate-colored automobile driven by a biggish man in a light tan overcoat and cap swing into view, cross in front of the car, and enter the park. It was all over in a flash. But just as the car swung near him who should he see sitting beside the man but Beryl, or certainly a woman who was enough like her to be her twin sister. He would have sworn it was Beryl. And what was more, and worse, she was smiling up at this man as though they were on the best of terms and had known each other a long time! Of course he had only had a glimpse, and might have been mistaken. Beryl had told him that morning that she was going to spend the afternoon with her mother. She often did that, sometimes leaving Tickles there while she did her mother’s marketing. Or, she and her mother, or she and her sister Alice, if she chanced to be there, would take the baby for a walk in the park. Of course he might have been mistaken.

But that hat with the bunch of bright green grapes on the side.... And that green-and-white striped coat.... And that peculiar way in which she always held her head when she was talking. Was it really Beryl? If it wasn’t, why should he have had such a keen conviction that it was?

Up to that time there never had been anything of a doubtful character between them—that is, nothing except that business of the Raskoffsky picture, which didn’t amount to much in itself. Anybody might become interested in a great violinist and write him for his photo, though even that couldn’t be proved against Beryl. It was inscribed to Alice. But even if she had written him, that wasn’t a patch compared to this last, her driving about in a car with a strange man. Certainly that would justify him in any steps that he chose to take, even to getting a divorce.

But what had he been able to prove so far? Nothing. He had tried to find her that afternoon, first at their own house, then at her mother’s, and then at Winton & Marko’s real estate office, where Alice sometimes helped out, but he couldn’t find a trace of her. Still, did that prove anything once and for all? She might have been to the concert as she said, she and Alice. It must be dull to stay in the house all day long, anyhow, and he couldn’t blame her for doing the few things she did within their means. Often he tried to get in touch with her of a morning or afternoon, and there was no answer, seeing that she was over to her mother’s or out to market, as she said. And up to the afternoon of the automobile it had never occurred to him that there was anything queer about it. When he called up Beryl’s mother she had said that Beryl and Alice had gone to a concert and it wasn’t believable that Mrs. Dana would lie to him about anything. Maybe the two of them were doing something they shouldn’t, or maybe Alice was helping Beryl to do something she shouldn’t, without their mother knowing anything about it. Alice was like that, sly. It was quite certain that if there had been any correspondence between Beryl and that man Raskoffsky, that time he had found the picture inscribed to Alice, it had been Alice who had been the go-between. Alice had probably allowed her name and address to be used for Beryl’s pleasure—that is, if there was anything to it at all. It wasn’t likely that Beryl would have attempted anything like that without Alice’s help.

But just the same he had never been able to prove that they had been in league, at that time or any other. If there was anything in it they were too clever to let him catch them. The day he thought he had seen her in the car he had first tried to get her by telephone and then had gone to the office, since it was on his way, to get permission to go home for a few minutes. But what had he gained by it? By the time he got there, Beryl and her mother were already there, having just walked over from Mrs. Dana’s home, according to Beryl. And Beryl was not wearing the hat and coat he had seen in the car, and that was what he wanted to find out. But between the time he had called up her mother and the time he had managed to get home she had had time enough to return and change her clothes and go over to her mother’s if there was any reason why she should. That was what had troubled him and caused him to doubt ever since. She would have known by then that he had been trying to get her on the telephone and would have had any answer ready for him. And that may have been exactly what happened, assuming that she had been in the car and gotten home ahead of him, and presuming her mother had lied for her, which she would not do—not Mrs. Dana. For when he had walked in, a little flushed and excited, Beryl had exclaimed: “Whatever is the matter, Gil?” And then: “What a crazy thing, to come hurrying home just to ask me about this! Of course I haven’t been in any car. How ridiculous! Ask Mother. You wouldn’t expect her to fib for me, would you?” And then to clinch the matter she had added: “Alice and I left Tickles with her and went to the concert after going into the park for a while. When we returned, Alice stopped home so Mother could walk over here with me. What are you so excited about.” And for the life of him, he had not been able to say anything except that he had seen a woman going into Briscoe Park in a tan-and-chocolate car, seated beside a big man who looked like—well, he couldn’t say exactly whom he did look like. But the woman beside him certainly looked like Beryl. And she had had on a hat with green grapes on one side and a white-and-green striped sports coat, just like the one she had. Taking all that into consideration, what would any one think? But she had laughed it off, and what was he to say? He certainly couldn’t accuse Mrs. Dana of not knowing what she was talking about, or Beryl of lying, unless he was sure of what he was saying. She was too strong-minded and too strong-willed for that. She had only married him after a long period of begging on his part; and she wasn’t any too anxious to live with him now unless they could get along comfortably together.

Yet taken along with that Raskoffsky business of only a few months before, and the incident of the Hotel Deming of only the day before (but of which he had thought nothing until he had seen her in the car), and the incident of the letters in the ashes, which followed on the morning after he had dashed home that day, and then that business of the closed car in Bergley Place, just three nights afterwards—well, by George! when one put such things together—

It was very hard to put these things in the order of their effect on him, though it was easy to put them in their actual order as to time. The Hotel Deming incident had occurred only the day before the automobile affair and taken alone, meant nothing, just a chance encounter with her on the part of Naigly, who had chosen to speak of it. But joined afterwards with the business of the partly burned letters and after seeing her in that car or thinking he had—Well—After that, naturally his mind had gone back to that Hotel Deming business, and to the car, too. Naigly, who had been interested in Beryl before her marriage (she had been Baggott’s stenographer), came into the office about four—the day before he had seen Beryl, or thought he had, in the car, and had said to him casually: “I saw your wife just now, Stoddard.” “That so? Where?” “She was coming out of the Deming ladies’ entrance as I passed just now.” Well, taken by itself, there was nothing much in that, was there? There was an arcade of shops which made the main entrance to the Deming, and it was easy to go through that and come out of one of the other entrances. He knew Beryl had done it before, so why should he have worried about it then? Only, for some reason, when he came home that evening Beryl didn’t mention that she had been downtown that day until he asked her. “What were you doing about four to-day?” “Downtown, shopping. Why? Did you see me? I went for Mother.” “Me? No. Who do you know in the Deming?” “No one”—this without a trace of self-consciousness, which was one of the things that made him doubt whether there had been anything wrong. “Oh, yes; I remember now. I walked through to look at the hats in Anna McCarty’s window, and came out the ladies’ entrance. Why?” “Oh, nothing. Naigly said he saw you, that’s all. You’re getting to be a regular gadabout these days.” “Oh, what nonsense! Why shouldn’t I go through the Deming Arcade? I would have stopped in to see you, only I know you don’t like me to come bothering around there.”

And so he had dismissed it from his mind—until the incident of the car.

And then the matter of the letters ... and Raskoffsky ...

Beryl was crazy about music, although she couldn’t play except a little by ear. Her mother had been too poor to give her anything more than a common school education, which was about all that he had had. But she was crazy about the violin and anybody who could play it, and when any of the great violinists came to town she always managed to afford to go. Raskoffsky was a big blond Russian who played wonderfully, so she said. She and Alice had gone to hear him, and for weeks afterward they had raved about him. They had even talked of writing to him, just to see if he would answer, but he had frowned on such a proceeding because he didn’t want Beryl writing to any man. What good would it do her? A man like that wouldn’t bother about answering her letter, especially if all the women were as crazy about him as the papers said. Yet later he had found Raskoffsky’s picture in Beryl’s room, only it was inscribed to Alice.... Still, Beryl might have put Alice up to it, might even have sent her own picture under Alice’s name, just to see if he would answer. They had talked of sending a picture. Besides, if Alice had written and secured this picture, why wasn’t it in her rather than Beryl’s possession. He had asked about that. Yet the one flaw in that was that Alice wasn’t really good-looking enough to send her picture and she knew it. Yet Beryl had sworn that she hadn’t written. And Alice had insisted that it was she and not Beryl who had written. But there was no way of proving that she hadn’t or that Beryl had.

Yet why all the secrecy? Neither of them had said anything more about writing Raskoffsky after that first time. And it was only because he had come across Raskoffsky’s picture in one of Beryl’s books that he had come to know anything about it at all. “To my fair little western admirer who likes my ‘Dance Macabre’ so much. The next time I play in your city you must come and see me.” But Alice wasn’t fair or good-looking. Beryl was. And it was Beryl and not Alice, who had first raved over that dance; Alice didn’t care so much for music. And wasn’t it Beryl, and not Alice, who had proposed writing him. Yet it was Alice who had received the answer. How was that? Very likely it was Beryl who had persuaded Alice to write for her, sending her own instead of Alice’s picture, and getting Alice to receive Raskoffsky’s picture for her when it came. Something in their manner the day he had found the picture indicated as much. Alice had been so quick to say: “Oh yes. I wrote him.” But Beryl had looked a little queer when she caught him looking at her, had even flushed slightly, although she had kept her indifferent manner. At that time the incident of the car hadn’t occurred. But afterwards,—after he had imagined he had seen Beryl in the car—it had occurred to him that maybe it was Raskoffsky with whom she was with that day. He was playing in Columbus, so the papers said, and he might have been passing through the city. He was a large man too, as he now recalled, by George! If only he could find a way to prove that!

Still, even so and when you come right down to it, was there anything so terrible about her writing a celebrity like that and asking for his picture, if that was all she had done. But was it? Those long-enveloped gray letters he had found in the fireplace that morning, after that day in which he had seen her in the car (or thought he had)—or at least traces of them. And the queer way she had looked at him when he brought them up in connection with that closed car in Bergley Place. She had squinted her eyes as if to think, and had then laughed rather shakily when he charged her with receiving letters from Raskoffsky, and with his having come here to see her. His finding them had been entirely by accident. He always got up early to “start things,” for Beryl was a sleepyhead, and he would start the fire in the grate and put on the water to boil in the kitchen. And this morning as he was bending over the grate to push away some scraps of burnt wood so as to start a new fire, he came across five or six letters, or the ashes of them, all close together as though they might have been tied with a ribbon or something. What was left of them looked as though they had been written on heavy stationery such as a man of means might use, the envelopes long and thick. The top one still showed the address—“Mrs. Beryl Stoddard, Care of ——” He was bending over to see the rest when a piece of wood toppled over and destroyed it. He rescued one little scrap, the half-charred corner of one page, and the writing on this seemed to be like that on Raskoffsky’s picture, or so he thought, and he read: “to see you.” Just that and nothing more, part of a sentence that ended the page and went to the next. And that page was gone, of course!

But it was funny wasn’t it, that at sight of them the thought of Raskoffsky should have come to him? And that ride in the park. Come to think of it, the man in the car had looked a little like Raskoffsky’s picture. And for all he knew, Raskoffsky might have then been in town—returned for this especial purpose,—and she might have been meeting him on the sly. Of course. At the Deming. That was it. He had never been quite able to believe her. All the circumstances at the time pointed to something of the kind, even if he had never been able to tie them together and make her confess to the truth of them.

But how he had suffered after that because of that thought! Things had seemed to go black before him. Beryl unfaithful? Beryl running around with a man like that, even if he was a great violinist? Everybody knew what kind of a man he was—all those men. The papers were always saying how crazy women were over him, and yet that he should come all the way to C—— to make trouble between him and Beryl! (If only he could prove that!) But why should she, with himself and Tickles to look after, and a life of her own which was all right—why should she be wanting to run around with a man like that, a man who would use her for a little while and then drop her. And when she had a home of her own? And her baby? And her mother and sister right here in C——? And him? And working as hard as he was and trying to make things come out right for them? That was the worst of it. That was the misery of it. And all for a little notice from a man who was so far above her or thought he was, anyhow, that he couldn’t care for her or any one long. The papers had said so at the time. But that was the whole secret. She was so crazy about people who did anything in music or painting or anything like that, that she couldn’t reason right about them. And she might have done a thing like that on that account. Personally he wouldn’t give a snap of his finger for the whole outfit. They weren’t ordinary, decent people anyhow. But making herself as common as that! And right here in C——, too, where they were both known. Oh, if only he had been able to prove that! If only he had been able to at that time!

When he had recovered himself a little that morning after he had found the traces of the letters in the ashes he had wanted to go into the bedroom where she was still asleep and drag her out by the hair and beat her and make her confess to these things. Yes, he had. There had been all but murder in his heart that morning. He would show her. She couldn’t get away with any such raw stuff as that even if she did have her mother and sister to help her. (That sly little Alice, always putting her sister up to something and never liking him from the first, anyhow.) But then the thought had come to him that after all he might be wrong. Supposing the letters weren’t from Raskoffsky? And supposing she had told the truth when she said she hadn’t been in the car? He had nothing to go on except what he imagined, and up to then everything had been as wonderful as could be between them. Still....

Then another thought had come: if the letters weren’t from Raskoffsky who were they from? He didn’t know of anybody who would be writing her on any such paper as that. And if not Raskoffsky whom did she know? And why should she throw them in the fire, choosing a time when he wasn’t about? That was strange, especially after the automobile incident of the day before. But when he taxed her with this the night of the Bergley Place car incident—she had denied everything and said they were from Claire Haggerty, an old chum who had moved to New York just about the time they were married and who had been writing her at her mother’s because at that time he and she didn’t have a home of their own and that was the only address she could give. She had been meaning to destroy them but had been putting it off. But only the night before she had come across them in a drawer and had tossed them in the fire, and that was all there was to that.

But was that all there was to it?

For even as he had been standing there in front of the grate wondering what to do the thought had come to him that he was not going about this in the right way. He had had the thought that he should hire a detective at once and have her shadowed and then if she were doing anything, it might be possible to find it out. That would have been better. That was really the way. Yet instead of doing that he had gone on quarreling with her, had burst in on her with everything that he suspected or saw, or thought he saw, and that it was, if anything, that had given her warning each time and had allowed her to get the upper hand of him, if she had got the upper hand of him. That was it. Yet he had gone on and quarreled with her that day just the same, only, after he had thought it all over, he had decided to consult the Sol Cohn Detective Service and have her watched. But that very night, coming back from the night conference with Mr. Harris Cohn, which was the only time he could get to give it, was the night he had seen the car in Bergley Place, and Beryl near it.

Bergley Place was a cross street two doors from where they lived on Winton. And just around the corner in Bergley, was an old vacant residence with a deal of shrubbery and four overarching trees in front, which made it very dark there at night. That night as he was coming home from Mr. Harris Cohn’s—(he had told Beryl that he was going to the lodge, in order to throw her off and had come home earlier in order to see what he might see) and just as he was stepping off the Nutley Avenue car which turned into Marko Street, about half a block above where they lived whom should he see—But, no, let us put it this way. Just at that moment or a moment later as he turned toward his home an automobile that had been going the same way he was along Winton swung into Bergley Place and threw its exceptionally brilliant lights on a big closed automobile that was standing in front of the old house aforementioned. There were two vacant corner lots opposite the old house at Bergley and Winton and hence it was that he could see what was going on. Near the rear of the automobile, just as though she had stepped out of it and was about to leave, stood Beryl—or, he certainly thought it was Beryl, talking to some one in the car, just as one would before parting and returning into the house. She had on a hooded cape exactly like the one she wore at times though not often. She did not like hooded capes any more. They were out of style. Just the same so sure had he been that it was Beryl and that at last he had trapped her that he hurried on to the house or, rather, toward the car. But just as he neared the corner the lights of the car that had been standing there lightless flashed on for a second—then off and then sped away. Yet even with them on there had not been enough light to see whether it was Beryl, or who. Or what the number on the license plate was. It was gone and with it Beryl, presumably up the alley way and into the back door or so he had believed. So sure was he that she had gone that way that he himself had gone that way. Yet when he reached the rear door following her, as he chose to do, it was locked and the kitchen was dark. And he had to rap and pound even before she came to let him in. And when she did there she was looking as though she had not been out at all, undressed, ready for bed and wanting to know why he chose to come that way! And asking him not to make so much noise for fear of waking Tickles...!

Think of it. Not a trace of excitement. No cape with a hood on. The light up in the dining-room and a book on the table as though she might have been reading—one of those novels by that fellow Barclay. And not a sign about anywhere that she might have been out—that was the puzzling thing. And denying that she had been out or that she had seen any car, or anything. Now what would you make of that!

Then it was, though, that he had burst forth in a fury of suspicion and anger and had dealt not only with this matter of the car in Bergley Place but the one in Briscoe Park, the letters in the ashes and the matter of Naigly seeing her come out of the Deming, to say nothing of her writing to Raskoffsky for his picture. For it was Raskoffsky, of course, if it was anybody. He was as positive as to that as any one could be. Who else could it have been? He had not even hesitated to insist that he knew who it was—Raskoffsky, of course—and that he had seen him and had been able to recognize him from his pictures. Yet she had denied that vehemently—even laughingly—or that he had seen any one, or that there had been a car there for her. And she did show him a clipping a week later which said that Raskoffsky was in Italy.

But if it wasn’t Raskoffsky then who was it—if it was any one. “For goodness’ sake, Gil,” was all she would say at that or any other time, “I haven’t been out with Raskoffsky or any one and I don’t think you ought to come in here and act as you do. It seems to me you must be losing your mind. I haven’t seen or heard of any old car. Do you think I could stand here and say that I hadn’t if I had? And I don’t like the way you have of rushing in here of late every little while and accusing me of something that I haven’t done. What grounds have you for thinking that I have done anything wrong anyhow? That silly picture of Raskoffsky that Alice sent for. And that you think you saw me in an automobile. Not another thing. If you don’t stop now and let me alone I will leave you I tell you and that is all there is to it. I won’t be annoyed in this way and especially when you have nothing to go on.” It was with that type of counter-argument that she had confronted him.

Besides, at that time—the night that he thought he saw her in Bergley Place—and as if to emphasize what she was saying, Tickles in the bedroom had waked up and begun to call “Mama, Mama.” And she had gone in to him and brought him out even as she talked. And she had seemed very serious and defiant, then—very much more like her natural self and like a person who had been injured and was at bay. So he had become downright doubtful, again, and had gone back into the dining-room. And there was the light up and the book that she had been reading. And in the closet as he had seen when he had hung up his own coat was her hooded cape on the nail at the back where it always hung.

And yet how could he have been mistaken as to all of those things? Surely there must have been something to some of them. He could never quite feel, even now, that there hadn’t been. Yet outside of just that brief period in which all of these things had occurred there had never been a thing that he could put his hands on, nothing that he could say looked even suspicious before or since. And the detective agency had not been able to find out anything about her either—not a thing. That had been money wasted: one hundred dollars. Now how was that?