STAGE TWO
I
A great deal of water had run under the bridge since Clarinda had left the big house and gone back to the flat. A great deal more water had run under the bridge before Clarinda had consented to come back to the big house and had settled permanently in its rooms and halls.
Her child had been born, it had thrived and grown, her father had aged. Rarely he came to the house unless he was assisted by his man, and then only when the sun was bright and the sky unclouded. Peter had grown more successful and had acquired the Midian touch. Gold came to him as penury comes to most. His arrogance and bombast had grown greater. Her mother remained in the background. Removed from all contact with Clarinda and her life, she came to the house very seldom and then only to complain. She appeared to think her duty toward Clarinda finished and reasoned as she had given Clarinda birth, raised her to womanhood and married her off, she had done for her all that a mother could do.
Having finished her duty, she gave herself up to a life of pleasure, and she caromed from one gaiety to another like the balls upon a billiard table, propelled by a professional.
The going from the flat to the house had been considered by Clarinda for many, many months before she reached a decision. She thought it out carefully. She argued the thing from all sides, and came to the conclusion that probably she might be in error, as many women err who are in love. Without consideration of her own happiness she gave in before the arguments of her father and of Peter.
Peter won the first great point in their lives. On the day they came back Mrs. Caws again stood in front of them with a curious smile upon her hard old features; he gloated upon his victory, and gave orders with unction. It pleased him immensely, and it swelled him with his own importance. He felt it was by his own strength of will that he compelled Clarinda to accept the exact position he deemed proper a woman should occupy in relation to her husband. His joy on the whole was complete, for woman to him was a woman properly placed.
Clarinda looked at him narrowly. Her mind was in a state of chaos. She felt in her soul that she had lost something she could never recover. Yes, she knew his outlook, and although she knew it she hated it fiercely.
If it had not been that by persistent effort through a term of years, Clarinda had taught herself to control her tears, she would have wept. But she had learned in these years how to control her tears. Tears had no effect upon Peter, for when she wept, Peter only scorned her. So she found that she aroused no pity in his heart.
Steadily Clarinda had fought the move from the old to the new, but Peter had fought even as consistently. His strength resulted in her defeat and so it came about. After they had entered the house Peter helped her off with her wraps. At a signal to Mrs. Caws, who had been standing close by, she left the hall. As she closed the door behind her, Clarinda turned to Peter and said slowly as if repeating a line she had heard,
“My happiness has gone out of the window.”
Peter tossed his head. A wicked smile crossed his lips. He spoke with bitter sarcasm.
“I can’t understand your attitude, Clarinda. It seems to me if anyone had given me such a place as this, I would rather have said my happiness had come in by the window.”
Clarinda paid no attention to his reply. She continued to speak in the same painful voice:
“You’ve won, Peter,” and her lips trembled as she stopped for an instant. “It is the little things in life that count. It is the tiny pebble that changes the course of the stream. Yes, Peter, you’ve won—and at what a price.”
“It represents thousands and thousands, Clarinda,” he replied, without getting her point of view.
“Money—money—money! That is your fetish. You are carried away with gold! It will bury eventually all that is good in you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “Money may be rotten and all that; but from my observation it is a most comfortable sort of possession.”
“Where is your soul?”
“Rot!” he exclaimed. “Why be trite? Souls in this world? A curious superstition handed down from no one knows where. A relic of fear. A thing to dangle before the eyes of the sick to help them die with a smile. A sop to the sick. A thing to dangle before the ignorant. Of what avail are they? Sometimes, I wonder whether you will ever graduate into the sort of woman I want. Must you always have a child’s point of view?”
“What sort of woman do you want, Peter?” she asked looking at him closely. “Since you’ve won this point, if you will tell me I will be that sort.”
Peter walked away from her a few steps then after a short while he turned and replied.
“I’ve thought a lot about the sort of woman I want. It is difficult to come to an exact conclusion. When I am idle I picture to myself the sort I think I should have. It is a very hard proposition.”
“Express it, Peter! You’ve never had difficulty on that score.”
“Sometime I will. I can’t do it now for it would take too long. I am very busy. I’ll tell you some other time.”
“I want you to do it now. Explain!” Clarinda broke forth. “I don’t believe you ever can explain! I see!—I know!—I may be stupid and only a child—but I know! Another illusion has been torn from me, and the bare bone is left.”
Clarinda turned to go out of the door that led to the upper reaches of the house. Peter went after her quickly. He took her hand in his and led her unwillingly toward the sofa that stood to one side.
“Sit down here,” he commanded, “for just a moment. I am going to try to tell you what I mean.” Clarinda sat down and bent her head forward looking intently at the floor in front of her. A deep serious gaze was in her eyes. “I am going to tell you what I mean,” he continued repeating himself. “It is true, Clarinda, that I’ve not much time, but we might as well thrash the thing out. I am going to put before you the position I occupy. You’ve always been square and able to see how just I am. Now listen.”
In the more than three years they had been married, Clarinda had lost none of her sweetness of look. Peter was forced to concede that much. Since the baby had come, it appeared to him that an added lustre had been given to her. She had developed wonderfully. Her figure and the lines of her young face had been metamorphosed. The baby represented to him another incident in life—a component part of the progress.
He sat down beside her and looked at her bent body. But he would not let himself be swayed, for he felt this would not be just to himself. The time had come when Clarinda must be brought to face the exalted position he had constructed for her and for himself.
They sat close together and Peter chose his words with infinite care. With as much certainty and deliberation as if he were placing a matter of great moment before one of the numerous boards of directors to which he belonged.
“This,” he began slowly, “is my position and I think you ought to realize it perfectly. I am, what is normally termed, a successful man, having arrived at this position by my own efforts. It is vital to me that you fill this position with me. You know, if you have ever considered the matter, that a wife assumes more or less the position of either an employee or a partner in a marriage contract. A thing like this is not all of one side. Butterflies are all well enough in a garden, but only in a garden. In the grand scheme they amount to nothing. If either of the contracting parties does not arise to his or her part, the one not arising assumes a minor position in the operation. In other words, she or he loses his standing as a partner. He or she stands apart in the fight. You will concede that life is a fight, a survival of the fittest. This you must acknowledge is correct. It stands without discussion. It is a syllogism.”
Clarinda listened to his words and her mind followed each sentence as he spoke. In her arose a wrath complete. He destroyed every foundation upon which she had hoped to build her existence. However, she said nothing.
Peter continued: “I admit I love you. It would distress me beyond words if I thought for an instant that love didn’t exist in me and if the same thing didn’t animate your spirit. You must understand that my love isn’t an effervescing thing, but a solid unfrothed condition. Stable and certain. Pushed aside, it is true, by necessities, but existent. Now, with that love, as I say a certainty, it is required of you to fulfill your part of the contract to expand, to develop, to spread, even as I have spread.”
“Do you think you love?” asked Clarinda. “Have you ever thought in your dissection of this matter of how I have suffered for you? I suffered terribly when the baby came. I suffered for months with a painful illness. But that is of no importance. The baby is only part of me, a thing—how should I say?”
“Don’t try,” he said quickly. “Suffering is part of your life, just as this disappointment in you is an adjunct of mine, a necessary part of our existence to be treated philosophically. It amounts to nothing. When the pain is assuaged you cannot remember its effects. You speak of love, our love. What of our love? My opinion of this matter of love, is this. Love is a proper condition and should be in every house, but in the main it amounts to nothing. It has no intrinsic value. Nature does not recognize love. It only sees propinquity which it reduces to the necessity of reproduction. Do you suppose love exists in the lower forms of life? It does not. I love, but I don’t allow love to obscure my larger view. I submerge it and put it to its proper uses. What does love mean? Nothing but a moment’s forgetfulness—passion—children—probably better if never born. It is useful in its place, but in the grand scheme it has no place. Of course you suffer—why not? But you should realize that never can a woman arrive at the proper point of view. They are too animal-like and too physically disarranged. They are by far too bound down by their natural destiny. It is unnecessary for me to mention what that destiny is.”
“Do you believe what you are saying? Don’t you think you’re just talking, Peter?” Clarinda broke in as he paused for an instant.
“I believe I am not just talking for talk’s sake. I’ve no time to waste in idle words. There is one more thing. No doubt you probably think what I have said is cruel. I admit it sounds cruel. It is cruel, because all life is cruel. The coming of your child was cruel. The coming of age upon you is cruel, nature is the epitome of cruelty, it crushes without stint or consideration. It builds only to destroy.”
“What a curious philosophy,” Clarinda’s voice quavered. “Then I have failed. How queer. And the baby—”
“The baby,” he went on with even as great care as he had used, “the baby is a thing apart, an accident in life, which was desired by neither of us. Why should we have babies? I’ve asked myself this many times and arrived at no solution. Why produce these things? An uncontrolled animal instinct forces us to bring them into the world, and for what? When I see babies I generally weep. I see before me the future, the futility of youth, the sadness of the middle period, the arrival at puberty, then the going forth to seek a mate, the development of the sex instinct, and then the shriveling and shrinking into the grave. I would not say, Clarinda, that you had failed, I would not go that far. It is hard to explain. I shall try to think it out further.”
Clarinda arose from the sofa, and went to one of the long windows that gave a view out upon the garden. She gazed unseeingly over its expanse, and spoke in a tone so low that he from his distance could barely hear her.
“I do not believe as you believe, Peter, I am glad to say. I can’t tear things apart as you do, and I am glad I cannot. It is terrible to think as you think. It makes everything so black, so discouraging. Even with this view of yours there are things even more vital; if possible, more vital than money and success. You’ve said frightful things to me; you think you are analytical, logical, but you are not; you only destroy. It is horrible to me to think that it is only a little over three years since we were married and already the good in you has died, and for what? Money, and a false philosophy built upon—nothing! Oh! how I hate money, success, riches and places like this. How I wish we were poor!”
“Then, probably, Clarinda, instead of lashing you with indisputable logic, I would be beating you with a whip. Everything is comparative. You speak in broken tones, as if a tragedy had come upon you. Life is a tragedy. But it is foolish to think of it so. Why not face facts?”
“Facts! Facts! Nothing but facts!” Clarinda almost screamed. “It is a tragedy. You remember, Peter, at one time Father said our lives were too prosaic. How mistaken he was. He could not see tragedy even if it stalked directly in front of him. Poor soul. He said, if you remember, that it would be a good thing for us if we had a murder, a great theft, or that you or I should lead a double life. That this sort of thing would lend interest. Poor Father. He didn’t know that tragedy was upon me. That murder was in your heart and that you were preparing to commit murder, only in a worse way than the actual stabbing or shooting me to death. It would have been better if you had done it that way, than to have done it, as you say, with indisputable logic. It might have been better for me had I been the wife of a drunkard. He might have beaten me with whips. But at least he would have left hope in my heart. Now I have nothing. Yes, yes, Peter, you have won. You should be proud of your victory.”
Peter arose from the divan and walked quickly and impatiently up and down the hall. He did not think Clarinda would take the change he was forced to bring about so much to heart. He had convinced himself she would see it as he did.
“You are dramatic, Clarinda, and unnecessarily so. I don’t believe you think.”
“I’ve been taught that to think was wrong. I know now women should not think. It might be better if they did. For without thought they only invite disaster. We will see, Peter, but don’t be disappointed if this philosophy doesn’t come to your end. You’ve said I have failed you. I promise not to fail in the future.”
Clarinda turned from the window and went quickly out of the room, and she closed the door gently behind her. Peter made a motion as if to stop her, but he did not. He felt it were better that she should work the new situation out in her mind. He was convinced she would see the justice of his position.
Presently he went out of the house and entered the automobile that waited for him at the door. As he settled himself back in the cushions of the car, he reverted to the first refusal Clarinda had made when she left the big house upon her first induction into it. He had never forgiven her for this. He had tried to make excuses for her, but could find none even when he ascribed it to her condition at the time; but her consistent attitude in her refusal divorced this excuse from his mind. It had hurt him immeasurably when he considered the time and the effort he had expended to accumulate the place. Her stubborness and wilful conduct destroyed his ambition.
He knew he would never get over the blow from the instant she had given it to him. His mental attitude towards her underwent a change, a change so vital that he would never be able to overcome it. Clarinda fell from the pinnacle upon which he had placed her and had descended into the mere wife. She had become a necessary evil in his life, but not a component part thereof.
As he allowed her to go out of the door, he reflected he had caused a change and he would abide by it. If it evolved a bad situation, he would accommodate himself to the new condition. He was too busy to give it more thought, it might take his mind off his real effort. Peter tossed his head in the air and as the car went swiftly along his tongue evolved the few words:
“What a hell of a bore!”
Clarinda watched him go from the window in her apartment. She heard the automobile that waited outside. She heard the engine start and she heard Peter give his order to the driver. A great black pall came over her. She went from the window and sank hopelessly upon the divan. Clarinda buried her lovely head in a cushion and thought.
With clearness she saw her position. She knew from now on that instead of being an integral part of Peter’s life she was but his legalized mistress, clothed with respectability. All her hopes died, and all her anticipations for herself and her baby died and were swept by the angry winds of adversity into space. Clarinda wept.
After a long time by superhuman effort she collected herself, and forced a new spirit into her life. She was no more the Clarinda who had existed. Her love for Peter died. She stood untrammelled—free.
She rang the bell that was near at hand.
“I will go out,” she said to the maid as she entered the room. “Order my car.”
The maid whispered almost to herself. “Something has happened.”
Clarinda put on her wraps, and it was only a few moments when the car was at the door. She entered it and gave an order to the driver.
Then, “Horrors!” she muttered.
II
The car sped over the road. Occasionally the driver turned for directions. Clarinda’s only reply was to drive faster. It seemed to her the only thing she desired was motion, such motion as might keep pace with her thoughts.
A feeling of despair overcame her, for her body suffered with her mind. Futility was even more dominant than ever. She had become imbued with the spirit of Peter, that nothing in the world was of any avail, that to fight against a surrounding condition was of no use, that all things were controlled by an invisible force, a force that laughed at any effort to set it aside from its driven path. There was nothing left. It was all reduced to her as a difficulty without a sign of relief.
All that she believed in was destroyed. Even the struggle she had made to make for herself and Peter a life as near an approach to the ideal as possible had fallen to pieces. There was left of her endeavor—nothing.
In the midst of her madness the face of her child came before her. She hated it even as she hated all things. Her hate for Peter was paramount and a greater hate existed in her heart for her father. Her bitterness seemed to concentrate against her father, for it was he who had tutored her into the thing she was. The education he gave her had blighted her life, by leaving her unprepared to meet its vicissitudes, its necessities, and demands.
She sought in her mind for an excuse for them, but could find none. At last as if some great force had taken Peter and her father and stripped them of their flesh, laying bare their innermost souls, she looked into their breasts and saw of what they were made.
Heretofore her face had never betrayed a sign of hardness. It became hard, and her eyes changed color, her cheeks took upon them a different bloom. Her whole body changed under the blow she had received. A determination came into her and broke down all the barriers to her better self. All these barriers she had erected through years of endeavor were gone, and cast into the dust heap.
As a snake sheds its skin, so Clarinda shed all that had been the old Clarinda.
The impasse brought a new factor, one actuated by a woman of new motives. It brought a woman’s mind dark and seething and bitter, and Clarinda felt the change and shivered with fear at the prospect. She could not decipher to what end it would lead her.
Clarinda balanced her account with life and found it all written in red. Never had she received from it anything but the most terrible futility. Evil was not of her, but she determined it should come. All the good she scattered at her feet, breaking it as a frail piece of glass. From now on she would follow in the steps of those whom she had looked up to. Henceforth, she would gather the bitter, no matter what the poison might be.
Where she would land or to what end it should bring her, she cared not. With indefatigable sincerity she had tried to do what she thought was right. This had landed her in a morass of disappointment, and made her only the mistress of the man to whom she had been married. It was not her fault. It was the fault of Peter and her father and she was determined that they should pay. The price they should pay would be the price of death. For the years she had been married she had patted Peter upon the back and helped him with unswerving faith. Now, she should destroy with the same determination what she had endeavored to build. He should pay and pay in the coin he knew nothing of. Her father likewise should pay, for it was he who had spurred Peter on. Endlessly he told him in long conversations, during many nights, of his ability, until Peter believed he was impregnable. He caused Peter to lose all sense of proportion.
Clarinda was not angry at her own position; it was deeper than that. She would seek her own emancipation, for her life was destroyed. Why not bring down the temple with her in her fall, grind it, grind it out into powder that would leave no trace of its original intent?
“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will repay.” Clarinda knew this line, but it had no significance.
She put her hand upon the arm of the driver and told him to turn back and she directed him to the house of her father. In a short time she arrived. After the car stopped at the marble steps that led to his glory, she sprang from its interior and ran into the hall, the same hall she had come from with hope in her heart and visions of perfect joy in her soul. Then all the world had looked to her as if it desired to cover her with a mantle of good. Now it was gone, obliterated, wiped out and nothing remained. It was futile. In the place of promises it had given nothing and the struggle she had made was a vain endeavor.
Rapidly she walked across the hall and went up the stairs. She pushed open the door and entered the room in which her father sat.
In three years a change had come upon him. His limbs almost refused to carry his body. His hands shook pitifully. His eyes lacked in lustre, they had died, before he had died. Around his shoulders, limp and lost in form, hung a blanket of rich design to protect him from any draft that might steal insidiously across the floors. His head shook, even as his hands. All about him was disintegration. A sickness that portended death enveloped him.
He had been sitting there for months, and ever before his old, dim eyes came images of those who had gone before. He saw them when he was left alone and in the night they were even more present. They seemed to beckon to him across the dark passage he was confronting and he thought they smiled and their smiles seemed to him to be smiles of derision. Always they pointed at him with bony fingers and their fleshless jaws clashed with a painful noise. He feared and trembled with dread. There was no hope and he knew it, death was at hand. It was only tomorrow.
Often he saw the opened grave that would receive his worn-out body, and all would be ended. There was no hope of immortality. He believed in nothing. He saw but death, dirt and disintegration. When he had ceased to breathe, he would become carrion to be devoured by countless maggots.
The old man wept with regret and begged in his innermost self that he might be given a few more moments. Sometimes, the tears ran down his old, withered face. They fell mockingly upon his clothes and stained them as if with blood. He would slink back into the folds of his chair as if from its depths he could find protection from the thing he dreaded.
Clarinda as she entered the room saw him drawn back into his chair. She watched his hands shake and tremble as if with the palsy and pity went out of her heart, she wanted him to die. Clarinda linked her revenge with him. She wanted the death of this worn-out old man in front of her. He was dying, she knew it, and she rejoiced that it was so. The condition in which she found herself was his burden. Pity had died and nothing was left, there was no surcease. The thing was before her that had produced her and of this thing she would have revenge. She suffered and her suffering was greater than his. His was ended while hers stretched out for years. There was no such end for hers, as his. There was a stone in her breast where her heart should have been. She would carry this stone for endless years.
Clarinda threw off her coat. She did not go to her father, nor place the cover about him with her hands.
Her father looked at her and pride filled his heart. He envied her her youth and would have sacrificed her for a few more years of life. He was human and acknowledged it. Clarinda hated him as she hated Peter and she could not say which one she hated the more. Even her child she hated.
Her father stretched out his hand to her and placed his face to hers that she might kiss him. Clarinda did not move but stood directly in front of him. Her eyes were narrowed. A bitter smile flitted across her face. Clarinda saw him shake. She looked, as his hand fell inert at his side.
“It is over,” she said slowly.
“What is over?” her father asked mumbling his words.
Clarinda sat down in a chair and pulled it over in front of him. Her manner did not change. She kept her eyes fixed upon his face.
“It is over,” she repeated. “Life is queer. Don’t you think so, Father?”
“Yes, yes!” he answered. “What do you mean?”
“You are dying and it is fortunate it is so,” she replied with conviction in her voice.
The old man shrank back further in his chair. He turned his eyes towards her and looked eagerly into her face. He trembled in an agony of fear—he could not understand. He asked himself if in one day there had come such a change. Were the hands of the dead stretched out any more insistently today than yesterday?
“Do I look worse?” he asked pitifully.
“Yes, you are worse. Your hands are worse. Your face is more drawn. I can see a great change,” she replied, following with her eyes the effect of her words. It pleased her that he felt so deeply. Then she added:
“I believe you are dying. I believe that today when the sun goes down you will be dead. You’ve not fought, as you should have fought. You are as weak as I thought you would be.”
“Clarinda! Clarinda!” he screamed.
“Why do you fear? What’s the use? The thing is upon you. It is here. You must die. And now!” Clarinda smiled, her satisfaction was intense. Had he not murdered her? Had he not destroyed her? Was not her destruction greater than the destruction she passed on to him?
The old man gasped and his heart beat with fury in his breast. He could barely see her as she sat before him. He could not understand this curious change that had come to her, his Clarinda, the thing he had loved and worshiped.
“Why this, Clarinda, when you know my condition?” he stuttered.
“I will tell you,” she said intensely. “Through all my life you aimed to destroy me, even from my youth.”
As she was about to continue the door opened and Peter rushed into the room. Clarinda sprang quickly from her chair, as she heard him enter. He cast a look toward the huddled heap in the chair, and in a moment he saw that it was dead.
“What has happened? I suspected that you were up to something,” he said.
“You are the matter,” Clarinda replied turning from him and walking to the other side of the room.
“What have I done?” he asked, his face turning pale.
“You ask!” Clarinda exclaimed.
“I ask,” he said with wonder in his voice.
“What you have done is finished. There is the result.”
The figure in the chair slipped down a little further. The helpless hands dropped limp beside the chair, and a curious look of repose spread itself over the gray ashen face. A bit of saliva trickled from the open mouth.
Peter cried aloud and the house went into a turmoil. He tried to pull the old dead man back into the chair. It was useless, for gradually the body slipped to the floor and lay bent in curious contortions. Clarinda went out of the door, down through the hall and entered the car, and ordered the driver to take her home.
A fury that was intense drove her, but there was no pity in her heart. She wanted revenge and she would persist in bringing it about.
Peter followed her shortly and found her sitting upon the divan. There was no disturbance in her attitude. Clarinda sat quietly. On the floor in front of her was her child. It played unmindful of the tragedy about it. It cooed and looked occasionally at its mother. Clarinda bent her eyes towards it and wished in her heart it was as dead as her father. Should it be raised to sorrow such as she had? Would it put its trust in some great thing and have that trust destroyed? She could kill it with her own hands. It would take but a moment. Its life was held by a slender thread and her hands were strong.
Peter saw the look on her face as he entered. Quickly he took the child from the floor as if to protect it from her. Clarinda did not move.
“Your father is dead,” Peter said.
“I know it,” she replied shortly.
“You’ve killed him.”
“I know it,” she answered in a deadened voice.
“Why?” Peter asked.
“He is dead,” she answered. “It is better so. I am not sorry. You should have seen his fear. It was pathetic.”
“Why did you do it?” Peter asked, with awe in his voice.
“I am someone else. Probably such a wife as you want. I am different. My other self has died even as my father has died.”
“God forbid! I didn’t know!” Peter gasped.
“Go!” she demanded.
“You would have killed the child. I had a premonition. That is why I followed you. You would have killed the child?”
“Yes, I would have killed it. Why not? It is only the emblem of my degradation. It would not have mattered. Death may have saved it much.”
“Clarinda!” Peter trembled from head to foot. His mind was in a whirl. He could not understand.
“It is useless. Go!” Clarinda turned her face from him and walked over to one of the windows that gave a view of the garden.
Peter went out of the room, carrying the child with him and left her alone.
III
For the next day, and the next day, and the next day, Clarinda sat in a stupor. She revolved the death of her father about in her mind with such rapidity, that she sensed nothing of it. A new and curious development grasped her, and she could not understand what the development portended, or in what direction it was leading.
The preparations for the funeral, the long discussions with her mother as to the proper thing to do did not move her. It was a thing apart. Everything was mechanical. All passed over her head without stirring an emotion.
When a lucid moment came to her and she examined herself, she could not decide if she had been cruel or kind in hastening the end of the parent she had adored. She tried to talk to Peter about it, but Peter would not listen to her. Yet out of it, she could not, even though she tried, force one iota of pity for the old man. It appeared to her to be a peculiar cataclysm.
She asked herself over and over again, why had she thought of killing the child? It was in no way responsible for anything. Yet she could have done it and felt no more sorrow than she felt at the death of her father. To her the child did not represent youth, it represented a term of years. It was old enough to die. It had life, and her great desire was to crush something that had life. She had not done it at the moment because it came to her in a flash, that the child was too young to appreciate the condition under which she suffered. It would not have sensed the words she would have said to it, before she would have crushed its life out. It struck her from this point of view that it would have been a useless sacrifice. It would have been just as useless to kill Peter, for then he would have been dead and removed from any further suffering. This would not have been wise, for it was her purpose that he should feel, where she could see, the degradation to which he had reduced her, so she let him live.
Peter left her in her solitude. It was only broken by the coming and going of her mother from time to time. She never asked for the child. In a vague way she knew it was being taken care of by its numerous nurses and its attendant physician, but in her heart she hated it, for it represented to her something terrible.
Peter, however, sought it out and looked after its material comforts. Peter was afraid to leave it alone. He was frightened at the outcome of his trial of strength with Clarinda. He could see the look on her face as he had entered the room after the sudden death of her father and the expression with which she looked at the child as it cooed up at her from the floor. He could not make out why he had followed her, or what force had compelled him to leave her father’s house in the midst of the turmoil of the death. For some unknown reason he had slipped away to his own home with fear grasping his heart, for he presaged a new disaster. Why, he could not tell.
Day followed day with him even as it followed with Clarinda, and the time of the funeral was upon them. Mechanically they went to the house, and they sat about for some hours before the company came to pay the last rites to the owner.
Clarinda’s mother sat in proper gloomy silence. Her great body heaved at intervals with emotion. A tear at times stole down her face. She blew her nose, making a noise that appeared painful to Clarinda, and over her face was hung a heavy black veil that hid her entirely from the gaze of the people, who gradually filed in and took seats in prescribed limits. Clarinda thought her mother looked like a lump. She sat quite near the flower-covered casket that held the body of the old man, and it was black, with silver handles.
Candles gave a fitful light and the tiny blaze they bore swung here and there like imprisoned souls, that longed to be free. Tiny trails of smoke went from them into the air, and the smoke melted away in the mass of flowers which decorated the mantels and the casket.
Clarinda like her mother was covered with a veil. She looked through it, and it came back to her vividly the last time a crowd of people had been gathered in this same place. It had been decorated as now, except an altar stood where the casket was now. It was swept as then with a soft breeze when the doors to the hall were opened. Almost the same people were here now as were here then. A musician presided at the organ before and the soft tones filled the hall then as now. The only difference was that the song was changed. Instead of “O Perfect Love,” it played now, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” As then, now a small voice sang in the offing and the sweet, gentle tones filled the hall even as before.
Then, there were smiles and tones of laughter and now only suppressed polite moanings. Sorrow instead of joy, tears instead of laughter. None of the guests weaved his way across the polished floors. They sat stiff, immovable. Instead of a bridegroom, an undertaker slipped noiselessly about the place, like some gnome, or bird of ill omen. The priest was still. He stood beside the coffin and in a few moments read in subdued tones from his rubric and his face was drawn and somber. There was none of the lightsomeness of the other occasion when he had married the man to Clarinda, who sat stiff and stolid beside her.
Peter looked about furtively. He saw the mother of Clarinda and wondered why she should be so grief-stricken. He had known her as a person who delighted in the Church and believed perfectly in its history and its manifold benefits. He knew she prayed each night that she might be taken up into heaven and stand upon the right hand of the Throne of Power. He could not understand how with her belief she could not have rejoiced at the death of this person. To him it was a wonderful release. The fight was done. The struggle to hold on to the meagre possessions that this one had accumulated was over. He had succeeded.
To him the atmosphere was bad. The paid pall-bearers were bad, they seemed an incongruous note in the place, he disliked them. He hoped in his heart that when he should become as the one in the box, that some of his friends would carry him out of his house and place him in the hearse. Peter did not fear death. He liked to dwell upon it. He liked to try to reason exactly what it meant to him, for he looked upon it as a release. He believed nothing and feared nothing. Peter scoffed at religion and it amused him to discover that the symbols of the church were the same as those to which the Egyptians bowed thousands of years ago.
They left the house, and they came back again. The dirt had fallen with a hollow sound over the bones of the old man. They ate. The flowers had disappeared from the hall. The servants resumed their same tones of servility and nature reasserted itself and life went on as before.
Clarinda and he went back to their own house. Peter lit a cigarette, and stretched himself. Clarinda sat upon the divan, and didn’t think of anything. Time went by her without notice.
Peter blew the smoke from his cigarette into the air, and it curled in fantastic waves about his head and sank away into nothingness. His mind was almost as much a blank as Clarinda’s. He could not think, things had happened so rapidly that his head was in a whirl and he saw the future darkly.
The maid came into the room and asked quietly whether they desired anything, but received no response from either of them. She went out as quietly as she had come, and she shook her head as she closed the door behind her. Under her breath she said as if to herself:
“I’ve seen many just like these. It is the end. They will separate. It is bad, and she so beautiful.”
The sun gradually went down and the dark came into the room. The things about them grew indistinct and the shadows died. The wind came up outside and sighed around the building. They did not move. Clarinda felt the strain. Peter grew nervous and moved his feet about on the rug as if to relieve the tension. Clarinda did not move from the position which she took when she first sank upon the divan. Her hands hung listlessly by her side and her head was sunk back upon one of the big cushions. Hour after hour they sat. Peter suddenly sprang from the divan and screamed, but Clarinda did not move. She seemed not to hear him. Peter arose from his seat and paced up and down the room. His step was nervous, excited and the perspiration gathered upon his forehead. He wiped it away with his hand. His face became pale and haggard and he stumbled over the rugs. It was only with an intense effort that he saved himself from falling. In an agonized voice he spoke. He was incoherent. He spoke rapidly and his words tumbled over each other and he wiped his forehead again as he stopped in front of her.
“For God’s sake speak!” he exclaimed. “I am going mad. I can’t stand the strain. Say something! It is horrible!”
“I’ve nothing to say,” Clarinda answered quietly.
“You’re a murderess!” he said with a trembling voice. He lost control of his speech. He kept on talking but he did not know what he said. Again he wiped his forehead with his open hand. It was wet.
“Stop!” exclaimed Clarinda. “You don’t know what you say. Someone might hear you. There are servants in the house.”
“I don’t care. I shall scream it from the housetops. I want everyone to know I’ve married a murderess.” Peter sank hopelessly back upon the divan.
Clarinda put out her hand and placed it upon his arm. Her touch made him shiver. He drew away from her.
“You’re a philosopher, but you’re a liar. You teach, but you fear your own teaching. You fight and when you lose, you weep. You destroy and you give nothing in return.” Clarinda stopped and took her hand from his arm and let it hang as it had hung since she had first sat down upon coming into the house. Peter trembled under her touch and trembled more when he lost the feel of her hand upon his arm.
“Put your hand back!” he demanded. Clarinda put her hand back and her face broke into a weary smile. She even allowed herself to pity him in his fear.
“What do you fear, Peter?” she asked. “Where is your philosophy?” Her voice was full of sarcasm. “You needn’t fear me. I am not going to do you any harm. You needn’t fear for the child. I’m not going to do it any harm. That would be useless. If I should do you harm, you would be finished. You told me that when you should die you would be finished. I don’t want you to die, I want you to live. I want you to see your other woman, the kind you wanted to marry. The sort you dreamed of in your idle moments, in your office, where you built air castles and forgot the human factor.”
“I shall divorce you!” he broke in.
“Oh, no, you won’t. I won’t let you. You’ve no grounds. I believe one has to have grounds for that sort of thing. But you shall have relief. I am going away for a long time. Months and months, perhaps years. But you will not forget me, Peter.”
“Where are you going?” he asked with a tone of relief in his voice. “When?” he added.
“Are you anxious for me to go?” she asked. Peter nodded his head in assent. Again he wiped his forehead with his hand, but in his eyes there came a look of relief. He even looked at her. She seemed different. She seemed to him to have expanded, her figure was different, her face was more beautiful and her eyes had a strange look in them.
“Where are you going?” he asked again.
“In a few days I am going. Where I don’t know. Europe I suppose. All broken, unhappy women go to Europe. They say they forget there. It must be the lights, the chairs on the boulevards. I may go to California. I may not. It makes no difference. You will tell lies about me and you will say the strain I have been under has been too great, that you are sorry that I’ve gone, and that you intend to join me in the fall or spring. But you do not. You will shake your head and look for sympathy and probably you will get it. You will lie manfully, Peter.” Clarinda laughed. Peter wiped his forehead with his hand. It was wet.
“I shall be divorced!” he repeated.
“Because my health is broken with the strain. No, you won’t, Peter. You won’t be divorced. If you do I shall kill you. If you besmirch my good name—” Clarinda’s voice rose in anger. “I shall come back. It is easy to kill. It amounts to nothing. You should know, for you killed the thing that loved you. You killed a trust. It is worse to kill that than anything else. I didn’t die, I couldn’t die. More is the pity.”
“Clarinda!” Peter exclaimed.
“Listen, I have it all arranged. Tomorrow, or the day after. We shall go back to Father’s house. The lawyer will be there, he will read the will. Father’s things will be given to those whom he wished. You will sit there with a crease in your forehead and will look wise. You will acquiesce and wonder why he did not leave you more. Inside your heart will be hurt. You will not say anything, you will smile, and pretend to be very much surprised that he has left you anything at all. You will draw upon your philosophy, and maybe you will be comforted. I doubt that very much. It will end in a farce. Mother will groan, and feel hurt. I—I shall not care. After this is done I shall go away to Europe or California or some other place and you, Peter, will meet me next fall or spring. You will lie.”
“Clarinda!” Peter could not understand. He could not believe the person who talked was Clarinda. He looked at her as if to reassure his mind that it was really she. He could not think. His mind was in a turmoil. “The baby?” he asked.
“That is yours, you will raise it, you will lie to it, you will tell it of its mother, her beauty, her cleanness of spirit. You will lie to it as you have lied all your life. You will tell it that you are going to take it to its mother, and when it gets old enough you will lie to it again. You will blame me. But you will not tell the child the truth. You’ve not the fearlessness to do that. You will not tell it that this thing was your fault, you will not tell it that the greatest failure in your life was of your own making, you have not the temerity.”
“I shall tell the child,” he answered.
“Oh no you won’t. I know you, Peter. Even better than you know yourself. You are a coward, Peter, a wonderful coward. This part is finished, this chapter is done. You may as well go. It is of no avail to talk more. I will go with you to my mother’s tomorrow and we will listen to the will. Another farce. Goodbye, Peter. Would you like to kiss me goodbye? You might think of it afterwards, Peter. It might do you good.”
Peter arose from the divan. He looked at her squarely in the face. A shiver went down his back. He said nothing but walked to the door and opening it quietly as one does on the dead, he walked from the room and closed it even as gently behind him.
Clarinda listened to his footfall and it gradually grew more and more indistinct and then died out. A silence fell in the place. The dark became impenetrable, there was no sound. Clarinda gave a great sigh and leaned back among the cushions and closed her eyes.
IV
In the morning at nine, Clarinda’s maid came into her room. Quietly she threw open the blinds and drew down the windows. She went from one place to another and picked up the various articles of clothing Clarinda had dropped upon the floor, a stocking, a pair of shoes, a skirt. When she had finished she turned towards the bed and saw Clarinda sitting up among the covers. Her hair streamed down about her shoulders and her eyes blazed like two great stars. Dark circles were under each of them, as if painted. The maid was startled. She came over to the side of the bed.
“Madame has not slept. Will Madame have a bath?” she asked with hesitation.
“No,” answered Clarinda shortly.
“Shall the nurse bring the child?”
“No,” she answered.
It had been the custom to bring the baby into the room in the morning. Clarinda always took it in her arms and would place it so it might play among the covers. It amused her. She always looked upon it as a phenomenon. She could not conceive this vital thing that scrabbled about, crawling from here to there was part of her flesh and blood, that she had brought it into the world. When she looked at it, she could not imagine it would grow into a man’s estate and be a power for good or evil, as the fates might carve out for it, that it should be a force. It was called Peter.
“Will Madame dress?” asked the maid.
“What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock, Madame.” The maid watched Clarinda carefully, as if she feared something. “Will you have your coffee now?”
“No,” answered Clarinda.
She rose from the bed and the maid threw a garment of light filmy stuff about her. Clarinda advanced to the middle of the floor. The maid thought she wavered as she stood, as if she were uncertain of herself. She walked quickly towards her but Clarinda felt her approach and sank into a chair.
“I must talk,” Clarinda said quickly. “Say something! Do something! Don’t walk about the place so aimlessly. It doesn’t matter what you say—say something!”
“You suffer, Madame,” the maid said quickly. “You have not slept. Have you some terrible trouble?” said the maid stopping as if at a loss. Clarinda turned her burning eyes upon her. “I don’t know what to say. I know nothing, but I pity you, Madame, your eyes are so bright they scare me.” The maid trembled. “You suffer.”
“Yes, I suffer. I suffer horribly.” Clarinda wrung her hands in despair. They dropped listlessly over the edge of the chair.
“From what, Madame? Why should you suffer? You have everything.”
“I must talk. I’ve no one to talk to.” Clarinda wept as she spoke and the great tears fell down her cheeks.
“Ah! Madame, I pity you, tell me. I will be discreet. I promise! I swear! It might do you good. It might spare you something. I might be able to help.”
Clarinda arose and walked about the room. She went hastily from one end to the other. Her arms beat the air. Occasionally she brushed the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes were bright as they had been, like two burning stars.
“Listen, Tizzia!” she commanded.
“I am listening, Madame.”
Clarinda increased her pace. She almost ran from one end of the place to the other. The filmy garment she wore trailed behind her in the wind she made. Her feet were bare and she spoke so rapidly she was almost incoherent.
“Can you imagine, to what a condition I have fallen? I, Clarinda! It can’t be true. It must be a horrible dream. He said I killed my father, the person I adored. It is not true. It is impossible. I loved him and I don’t believe he is dead. I didn’t go to his funeral. Peter says I killed him. Tizzia, I hate Peter!” and she turned and looked into the frightened face of the maid.
“Madame!” she exclaimed.
“Hush! I am talking. At last I can speak. Yes, I hate him. No one has ever hated as I hate. I even hate the child. He, Peter, said I would have killed it. I would have. I knew this house meant disaster. The others who lived in it met disaster. The man died and his wife and his children are in the world—starving. I knew it meant disaster. I begged Peter not to bring me here.”
“You will be divorced, Madame?”
Clarinda straightened herself up. Her figure seemed to add height. She laughed aloud. The tones of her voice rattled in her throat, and with a struggle she regained herself.
“No,” she said slowly, each word gathering strength, “I will not be divorced.”
“Probably Madame will go away,” Tizzia answered timidly.
“Did you ever hate, Tizzia? Did you ever hate? Hate so that murder entered your heart, so that it became an obsession?”
“God forbid!” exclaimed Tizzia with fright in her voice.
“That is not so bad. Murder is not so bad. For the thing you kill, dies. It stops. Think of me, my position. It is more terrible than if I had been murdered. I cannot die. I must live. Instead of being dead. I must go to my father’s house. I must sit and listen to his will. I must appear broken and distraught. I must do these things, and in my heart I shall fear none of them. I am glad he is dead. I am glad I saw him die. Did you ever see anyone die? It is wonderful. You should have seen his frightened old face. You should have seen his hands, the blood going from them, drying up. The veins stood out, and they seemed to pulsate. His face was first white, but when I spoke to him, it grew gray. His eyes lost their luster. His old body wrapped in a great cover shrank from me. It cried out for pity. I did not pity. I was amused. He was so pathetic, so frightened, then he gave a great convulsion and he dropped limp, and he was still. His body gradually slipped down and down until it lay a huddled mass of nothing on the floor. I laughed.” Clarinda’s voice stuck in her throat. A convulsion passed over her face, and she was fast becoming hysterical. She stopped.
“You must calm yourself, Madame. It is necessary. Mr. Thorbald will come. It would be bad for him to see you like this.”
“He will not come. He does not dare. He is afraid. He is a coward, Tizzia. Mr. Thorbald lies.” Clarinda clenched her hands. They pained her.
“Madame must collect herself. Madame doesn’t know what she says. It is terrible to hear, Madame!” Tizzia exclaimed quickly. Her face had become ashen with fear.
“I know what I say, Tizzia. I know only too well. I suffer so. I can’t understand why this should have come to me. I’ve tried so hard to do the things I thought were right. I’ve failed. He told me I had failed. He was right. I have failed miserably.”
A gong rang downstairs and the sound reverberated throughout the house. It struck Clarinda’s ear as if it would break the drums. Clarinda shivered.
“I must go,” she said. “I must enter the car with Peter. I must get out of the house and sit beside him. I must show sympathetic interest. They will force me to listen and be impressed with the things they say. I will do it. I will finish the story. I shall not weep.”
Hastily with the aid of the maid, Clarinda dressed herself, and did it with meticulous care. She charged the maid with lack of attention, and time after time, she took her hair down and had it re-arranged as often. It never suited her. After she had finished and had looked into the glass that hung from the ceiling to the floor, she went from the room out upon the landing, and on down the stairs to the hall, where Peter was waiting for her. He turned his eyes towards her as he heard her come. He was filled with apprehension, and a slight tremor shook his body, his heart stood still. Clarinda bowed to him as she passed, but said nothing. He likewise did not speak but with a slight bow he opened the door for her to pass out. The footman at the car, that stood at the bottom of the steps, held the door open and they entered.
At a sign from Peter the car moved slowly out of the garden, and then went more rapidly down the street. In a few moments it drew up in front of the house of her late father. Again the footman opened the door and offered his arm to aid her but she paid no attention to him, and quickly went into the house.
In the library to the right of the main entrance she found her mother sitting in gloomy silence. Clarinda spoke to her and found herself a seat some distance from her where she sat in a deep shadow. There was no sound. Peter sought to sit close to her, but Clarinda turned her eyes upon him and he went away and sat quite near her mother. Clarinda was alone in her portion of the room. She seemed to be set apart, as if she had nothing to do with the affair.
At a large table especially arranged sat a man, clothed in black like an undertaker. His head was large, his forehead protruded, and upon his nose rested a pair of glasses over which he looked. His air was pompous, and he seemed oppressed with his knowledge. To Clarinda he looked foolish. Before him upon the table lay a mass of papers, documents of parchment, and upon the floor propped up by the legs of his chair, stood portentous bags of leather with silver clasps. Impressive bits of red string lay among the documents. Clarinda looked at him, for he amused her. He looked so false, so pretentious, so unnecessary. She watched him move. He was being paid for his pantomime, and his pay would be in proportion to the bulge of his forehead.
After he had bowed to all those present, and spoken to each by his proper name, he cleared his throat. Then he wiped his forehead with a huge white handkerchief, which he placed on the table beside him. It looked like a mountain with peaks and turrets of intense white. To Clarinda it seemed part of his pretensions.
Accordingly, having duly impressed his hearers, he picked up a thick document, which was folded many times. Carefully he pressed out each crease. With slow precision he arose from the chair he occupied, and looked at the company over his glasses and read.
For a long time his voice went on monotonously. There was no inflection; he might have been reading to a court. He only stopped now and then to glance at Clarinda’s mother, at Peter, or at Clarinda. It seemed to Clarinda he would never finish, as if he would go on forever. Eventually the final sheet of the document was turned and he stopped as if he were an actor and waited for applause. When it did not come, he appeared disappointed.
Clarinda gathered nothing from the reading of the will. Peter smiled at the amount he received, and he was pleased. Peter loved money. Clarinda’s mother knew equally as much as Clarinda. She was entirely in the dark. They both knew they had been left something, but neither knew just how much or what.
“A wonderful will,” said the lawyer. “Fair, comprehensive, unbreakable.”
Clarinda arose from her chair. She walked over to the table and picked up the will from among the other papers.
“What do I have under this will?” she asked.
“Your father has treated you magnificently,” the lawyer replied.
“I didn’t ask that,” she said tersely.
The man picked up the will, quickly turned over a few of the pages. “You will find,” he said, reading carefully with the same lack of intonations, “under paragraph one, section A, page five and upon the subsequent page. ‘I hereby leave and bequeath to my beloved daughter the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, free of all tax.’ In section B, page six, paragraph five, you will find that this sum of money has been left in trust. You are to be free of any control of this money, and at your death, should you leave any children, they shall come into your share when they shall have attained the age of thirty-five. A fine proviso,” he added. “Per capita and not per stirpes. This refers to your mother’s portion.”
“Why that?” asked Clarinda.
He did not answer Clarinda’s question. “You will find that this money is free from any supervision by your husband and the increment thereof shall be paid to you by your said trustees.” He added again, “A fine proviso.”
“Who are the trustees?” asked Clarinda.
“I have the honor of being one of them, and the Safety and Guarantee Trust Company is the other.”
“Is Peter’s left in trust?” she asked.
“Oh no,” he replied, with a look of astonishment. “Men as a rule do not need trustees. They have more experience.”
“I just wanted to know.” Clarinda’s voice carried a peculiar tone. The lawyer looked at her searchingly. Peter turned his eyes towards her. Her mother sat in the same gloom and the same lack of understanding of what was taking place. Her mind only grasped the idea that in some way she was provided for, that this will had made her independent. Through her mind fled visions of what she would do, she even thought she would like to travel.
“That is all?” asked Clarinda, as she moved away from the table after laying the will upon it.
“I believe so,” answered the lawyer. Apparently not quite certain of himself. Clarinda’s manner broke in upon his usual method of carrying forward proceedings of the kind. He was upset, he could not exactly define why.
Clarinda bowed to him and nodded her head to her mother. She went out of the room and left them still sitting. Her mother was nonplussed. Peter did not go after her.
Clarinda entered the car, and ordered the driver to take her back home.
V
As the car left the front of the house, after the reading of the will, it went down the roadway to the street. At the lodge gates stood the old keeper who had been there many years. He it was who smiled and swept the clean gravel with his cap the day she had been married. He bowed again in the same way and his hat touched the clean gravel again as she went by. He smiled again, but now his smile seemed to be more sinister; it carried, as Clarinda looked at him, more terrible futility with it than it had at the former time.
Clarinda trembled as she huddled back in her seat of the car. She tried to blot him out from her mind, but his old face clung. He gave her more occasion for thought, but soon he was gone. The car went rapidly on its way, and it was only a few moments until it stopped in front of the place Peter called home.
Clarinda got out of the car and went hurriedly into the house, straight through the hall. She saw nothing, not even the servants who stood clustered about. They winked at one another and nodded their heads knowingly. In some manner they sensed with that peculiar intuition which hangs about servants that they were on the brink of a tragedy, the household, like many they had seen before, was disrupted—gone. Already they were turning over in their minds the finding of service elsewhere. Truthfully they hated the thought of the new applications they would have to file. It bothered them. The door boy, the man in buttons who handed the silver tray for the cards of the visitors, the housekeeper, all of them even to the scullery maid, were disgruntled. They liked the place. The stealings were easy and there was very little work to do.
Mrs. Caws stood close to the entrance like a bird of prey. She watched with eager eyes everything that happened. She, too, thought of the next place where she could get employment, and a smile crossed her lips. It was bitter, hard, and seemed full of anticipation. She loved disaster to come to such as Clarinda and Peter. It pleased her that people of the kind that Clarinda and Peter represented should go down from their great estate. She, in her narrow soul hated the rich, although it was from the rich that she was able to live.
Clarinda did not see her any more than she had seen the rest of them. She hastened to her room and after she had entered she closed the door tightly behind her. Then quickly she rang the bell that stood upon a table near the divan. The maid entered, her face was drawn, there were evidences of tears upon it, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were red.
“Madame, did you ring?” she asked.
Clarinda nodded her head. Presently she sat down upon the divan. Carefully she placed herself in its corner and tucked her body into the cushions and after removing her hat, she laid her head wearily back. A sigh left her lips, and it was so deep that it seemed to come from the depths of her heart. Her face was set, there was no sign of weakening. A bitter look had come into her eyes. The usual beautiful blue of them had died. They had become gray. A deep—dark gray.
After a long period of silence she said shortly as if speaking to herself, “That is over.”
“What is over, Madame?”
“Tizzia,” she continued, “after I am gone—after all this horrible life that I’ve had to lead is over, I want you to think of me, not as you see me now, but as you knew me when you first came into this place. When you do think of me, you must not forget that I feared the place. I don’t know why, but I did fear it.”
“Yes, Madame,” answered Tizzia. “I shall be happy to do so. You are going away?” she ventured timidly.
Clarinda looked at her as if appraising her, as if trying to decide whether she asked questions from interest in her, or only from the spirit of inquisitiveness. The maid stood in front of her. Her whole being to Clarinda seemed to betoken sorrow at her condition, and it gave Clarinda confidence.
“You know,” Clarinda went on. She spoke slowly thinking deeply of every word she uttered. “I don’t trust you. I don’t know if your apparent interest is from curiosity or just from the liking you have for other people’s sorrows.”
“Ah, Madame! I am sorry you said that!” she broke in quickly. “I don’t want your confidence—unless Madame feels I am not just curious. I sympathize with you, Madame, deeply. I’ve seen something of life, too, Madame, I, too, am a woman. I—”
Clarinda arose from the divan, and she strode about the room. She took great steps, as if in their length she could find relief.
Presently, she spoke quickly, not stopping her march. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you listen to me from curiosity or from real sympathy. I must talk to someone. It might as well be you. I’ve no one in the world to turn to. You don’t know the desperateness of such a situation. The meanest people in the world usually have someone. Sit down there!” she commanded.
“I would rather stand, please, Madame.”
“Sit down!”
Tizzia sat down. She placed her body upon the extreme edge of the chair. Clarinda still walked. She spoke loudly, without intermittence, and her words fell over one another, yet she appeared to think of each word as she uttered it. The maid listened and followed as best she could. At times the maid wept. At other times she trembled with fear, then again she thought Clarinda would drop from exhaustion. It seemed to her that she ran instead of walked from one end of the room to the other.
“I’ve thought it all out, Tizzia! I’ve thought it all out! Last night I didn’t sleep. I walked this room and my bedroom all night. I heard you come along the hall. I waited for you to come. It seemed to me as if it were years—years and years! You would be surprised how long it is from daylight to daylight, when you are waiting for some one. The hours are so long. The time goes so slowly. I don’t know how I lived through those hours. It was terrible, but it is over, it is gone! I’ve done my duty today. I’ve heard the will read, I am rich. I am under the domination of a little man and a great Trust Company.” Clarinda laughed. “I’ve three hundred thousand dollars, and when my mother dies, I shall have hundreds of thousands more. After I am dead, it goes to the child. He will be rich. Isn’t that splendid for him?” Clarinda’s voice rang with bitter sarcasm. For a moment she stopped in her march and stood in front of Tizzia. “Are you listening, Tizzia?” she asked. Tizzia nodded her head in assent.
“I am going away. Yes, Tizzia, I am going away. I am going to know an entirely different life. I am going to have lovers. I shall sell myself to the highest bidder—to some man who will buy my body with his filthy dollars. I shall find out whether this creature, man, places more value upon a woman whom he actually buys at so much per pound, than upon the woman who comes to him with love in her heart. Yes, I shall know the world! I shall know. I shall go away.” Clarinda’s eyes narrowed. She went on slowly. Tizzia did not move from the edge of her chair.
“Peter, the lovely, gracious, Peter—the successful Peter, the Peter whom my father patted upon the back and told how wonderful he was—wonderful, because he could filch a few more dollars than another man. He shall know how I am doing. He shall be told, by me, of every step I take. He shall feel the degradation to which I shall fall—he, this lovely Peter, thinks because I am a woman—I shall weaken. He thinks no woman can stand up against the force projected by man. This wonderful person thinks that I being a woman should sue for pity, that in the end, I will come back to him, grovel at his feet and ask him to give me respectability. Men think this sort of thing because a woman has borne him a child. Poor, foolish creature! I am going to destroy myself not with a knife, nor a pistol, nor with poison. But I am going to destroy myself—kill all those finer things which are of me. I am going to the dregs. I shall suffer. O! I shall suffer miserably. I hate the touch of men, Tizzia! But I am going to teach myself to bear it.”
Clarinda stopped as if for breath. She still walked up and down the room at a furious pace.
“O! Madame, you can’t! You don’t know what you say,” Tizzia broke in, and there were tears in her voice.
“O, yes, I do. I know exactly what I say. More’s the pity,” Clarinda answered quickly. “Can you imagine me in a brothel? It is laughable. But I am going. I am going to have a lover. I want a lover. I’ve always wanted a lover. When I married I thought that was what I was getting. I did not. But now I shall have one. It will be wonderful to give oneself to a lover—a man! Probably I shall get one who has committed a great crime. We shall always live in fear of the police. Probably he may have killed some one for a lot of money. When I meet him he will have great piles of bills, and we will sneak out at night and spend it—always in fear. He will beat me. He will get drunk and be brutal. But he will be a man! And after all it may happen I shall learn to love him.” Clarinda laughed. Her laugh scared Tizzia, even more than her words. Tizzia did not believe she meant what she said. But when she laughed she thought it might be true. That she would do as she said.
Clarinda continued: “And this man—this criminal with whom I shall live, to whom I shall give my body, he will probably desert me when I am getting the least bit old. I will feel this age coming upon me, then I shall paint my face. I will fight age. I shall learn how it is done. Every year that comes upon me will make me suffer more—for I know men only love youth. They hate age. They want only the young. But that will be a long way off. I am only twenty-three! It might happen that this lover of mine, kills me in one of his drunken fits. What a glorious heritage to leave Peter’s boy. His mother killed in a brothel by a criminal, a murderer. What a headline for the newspapers. Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald, the wife of Mr. Peter Thorbald the successful banker, murdered in a brothel. I hope it happens. It would be a glorious end to a great career. O, it is wonderful!”
Clarinda walked over to the window, and said nothing further. She appeared to have talked herself out. A great calm descended upon her. Tizzia arose from her chair. She did not know what to do. She stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. Clarinda heard her as she moved. She turned.
“You will pack my things, Tizzia. Put all my jewelry in the bags. It is foolish to go without anything. That is quixotic. I must take my money, too. It is easier to get a lover with money than without.”
“You will change your mind about the rest, Madame. You are too good to do the horrible things you say. Madame is excited. When you have thought the matter over you will think again.”
Clarinda looked at Tizzia. “How little you know me,” she said. Her voice was weary. Tizzia could barely hear what she said. “How little everybody knows me. How different it might have been if Peter had known me. I regret Peter, for once I loved him. He was the one great thing in my life, but he has died.”
“The child, Madame?”
“It belongs to Peter. I only brought it into the world. It is only my flesh and blood. It amounts to nothing. I wish it joy. I hate it! I could have loved it madly. But that, too, is dead.”
Tizzia went into the other room. She left Clarinda and began to put the things she wanted into the various bags. Lovingly she took down from the closets the many dresses Clarinda had loved. With delicate touch she folded each garment and placed it in the great trunks. She rang a bell and ordered more trunks brought into the room. The man who brought them ventured to ask what they were for. Was Madame going away? Tizzia did not answer. She wept incessantly. The tears fell from her cheeks and spotted the delicate fabrics.
Clarinda left alone threw herself down upon the divan. Time went by. The clock ticked as if nothing was taking place—as if the old life was just the same, as if happiness had not left the house.
Finally speaking to herself, she said: “It must come. Why not now?”
She arose from the divan, went out of the door leading to the rooms in which Peter lived. Quietly she opened the door. Over at a table she saw Peter. He was writing. His head was bent and he was absorbed in his task. His pen flew with rapidity. He did not hear her come in, nor did he hear the door close behind her. She spoke and Peter jumped from his seat. His face was pale, drawn, distorted. His brow she saw was covered with perspiration. As he moved, he wiped his forehead with his hand. He stood and stared at her.
Clarinda stood upon the opposite side of the table. She looked down upon him. As he jumped from his seat, he stood as if paralyzed. He did not seem able to move.
“Goodbye, Peter.” There was extreme sorrow in her voice. It quavered and trembled as she spoke.
“You are going?” he asked timidly.
“Yes, it is done. I have failed you. I am sorry. It was so full of promise, Peter. Our life could have been happy. But I have failed.”
“You cannot! You cannot!” His hands shook. The tears fell down his cheeks unresisted by him. His knees weakened under him. He fell back into his chair and buried his head in his hands upon the table. His great body shook with intense grief, and Clarinda pitied him, but her mind did not change.
“I am going, Peter. I am going away now, today. The maid is packing for me. Goodbye Peter.”
Peter moaned. “No—no—no! I can’t bear it! You can’t go! I won’t let you! It is impossible!”
“It is done, Peter.”
Clarinda turned and went slowly towards the door. Her hand fell gently upon the knob. Quietly she opened it. As Peter saw her go, he sprang from his chair. He held his arms outstretched towards her. The door came open slowly. Quietly Clarinda passed from the room, and the door closed softly behind her.
Peter screamed in his anguish. His soul was torn and he fell inert upon the floor. The dark took him, and his eyes closed.