"Mrs. F., I did not come here to listen to a dissertation on the sex-question nor to hold your hand while you have a fit of nerves.
You've got to pull yourself together or I'll wash my hands of the whole affair. I've come all the way from New York to help you out of a nasty, a _dirty_ scrape. If you wish to hear what I have to say you'll stop that silliness and act like a full-grown woman with a modicum of discretion.... Your husband is apt to walk in at any moment and it may be well for all concerned that we arrive at some plan of defence."
Her sister, who had retired to a corner of the room behind me when I sat down, now crossed to the bedside.
"Mrs. Hartley is right, Fannie--Frank is liable to show up at any minute."
Fannie fished for her handkerchief under the pillows and sniffed tearfully while her sister arranged the pillows.
"Please pardon me, Mrs. Hartley; my nerves are all gone."
"I have a few nerves, myself," I thought. I found myself grasping the arms of my chair as one sometimes does at the dentist's and my teeth fairly ached from the clinching of my jaws. When Mrs. F. had folded and dropped her hands into her lap with the air of a long-suffering woman, I proceeded.
"Mr. Hartley and I have decided that you are my guest: that it was at my invitation you went to Cleveland with us and that I urged you to continue on the trip until your husband returned from his hunting trip.
On your arrival here, you contracted a heavy cold which developed into the grippe; grippe will answer as well as anything else and is not sufficiently serious to call in a physician. Are you familiar with the symptoms of the grippe?" Mrs. F. nodded.
"Very well. When you began to grow worse you telegraphed your sister."
"But," interjected the sister, "that won't do; that won't hold together because Frank called me up on the telephone a few moments after he returned to Chicago and I told him I didn't know where Fannie was...." I stopped to think....
"Then we'll have to make the telegram reach you immediately _after_ he telephoned and, as he disappeared so abruptly without telling even his office force where he was going, you have an explanation for not being able to reach him.... Now, about the Cleveland week: you didn't know that your sister had gone away because you yourself were out of town. I believe that really was the case, was it not?"
"Quite true," replied the sister. "I was spending a few days at Wheaton."
"Then so far, it is clear, is it not?... Mr. Hartley will take care of the article which appeared in the Club Window ... and if your husband arrives, I'll try to take care of him.... Now, ... let us think: are there any points we have overlooked?" There was a silence while each of us reviewed the situation. It was Mrs. F. who spoke first.
"Suppose--suppose Frank has set detectives on my track and they find out that you've not been to Cleveland! O, I'm sure he'll do it! It's just like Frank! You don't know what a brute he can be. O, it's all very well to say that I am to blame--that I am in the wrong, but if you had lived with Frank for eight years as I have you'd understand some things--and not treat me as if I was a ----"
"Stop that!" I felt my eyes snap with the blaze she had kindled. She snivelled and sobbed a bit, then relaxed into sullen silence.
"If your husband _has_ employed detectives we'll have to meet the contingency by standing together. In other words we'll perjure ourselves like--perfect ladies. Mr. Hartley says--and being a man he ought to know--that no man would have the courage to tell me I was not telling the truth, even if he thought so."
"We'll never get away with it--we'll never get away with it," wailed Mrs. F.
It was the sister who spoke next.
"And suppose Frank does not show up--suppose he doesn't come at all but waits for the detectives' report and----"
"And begins action for divorce without even saying a word about it!" It was Madame who interjected this possibility. "Wouldn't that be just like him! Wouldn't that be Frank just down to the ground? Edith knows how cold-blooded he is, don't you, Edith? O, it's too awful! I never could live through such a thing! I wouldn't live! I'd kill myself--I'd throw myself into the lake! I'd----"
"Don't you think you are wearing that threat a little threadbare?" I asked quietly, henceforth addressing myself to the sister.
"In the event that your brother-in-law does not come or that we hear nothing from him, there is only one thing left: you must take your sister back to Chicago ... and I'll go with you...."
I believe my voice petered out before I completed the sentence. The idea was repugnant, but was it not all revolting in the extreme? I had given my promise to Will to "see it through" and I intended to do so to the best of my ability. Mrs. F.'s sister broke my train of thought. She stood before me with averted eyes struggling to keep back the tears, and twisting her hands nervously.
"Mrs. Hartley ... I don't want to appear maudlin ... but I think ... you understand how I feel.... It seems almost inane to say ... how much we ... appreciate what you are doing.... For my sister's sake I thank you ... I...."
"I'm not doing it for your sister's sake"--I tried to speak gently but everything in me seemed to have grown hard and unyielding--"nor for my husband's sake; neither for my own; I've got a boy--a son ... and there are two little girls...."
A volley of sobs smote our ears and shook the bed.
"My poor babies! The poor darlings!... I wish they had never been born!"
"It's too bad you didn't think of them before, Fannie," her sister answered caustically. It was the first expression of censure she had voiced. Mrs. F. bounced to a sitting position: yes, _bounced_ is the only adequate description. Grief had made a quick shift to anger. She glared at her sister.
"So you've turned against me, too, have you? I might have expected it: that's the gratitude you feel for all I've done for you. Where would you be if it were not for me?--you'd be pounding somebody's typewriter for five dollars a week! This is the thanks I get for sacrificing myself for the whole family! Every one of them will blame me for the whole business. What right have you to judge? How does anybody know what I've suffered for years living with that man?... literally starving for affection, ... he never took the trouble to understand my temperament ... he neglected me, he----"
"Hah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-" ... It was my turn to indulge in hysteria, only mine was of the laughing variety: I laughed until the tears came--until I sank back from sheer exhaustion. From their expression Madame and her sister thought I had gone suddenly mad.
"What are you laughing at?" she snapped, glaring at me with suppressed rage.
"My dear," I responded feebly, "my dear, don't you realize what an awful old chestnut that neglected wife story is? Mr. Hartley says they all use it ... it is the cardinal excuse, the subterfuge all married women resort to, to justify their own infidelities."
"Did--did Mr. Hartley intimate----?"
"O, no! Mr. Hartley betrayed none of your confidences ... but, tell me honestly ..."--I leaned forward and clasped my knees to better accentuate my words--"do you really expect a man of the world to believe that--or care whether you are neglected or not? You know that men gossip and bandy women's names about their clubs--not in so many damning words, but with a knowing wink, a shrug of the shoulder, this head-shake, or, 'by pronouncing some doubtful phrase ... or such ambiguous giving out'
... my dear ... I have a rare collection of mash-notes which my actor-husband has from time to time tossed laughingly into my lap. Their character varies like the colour of the paper on which they are written. There is the white, the pale blue, and several shades of lavender.... The actor's world is full of lavender ladies of the Bovary type: the wonder of it is that so many of them 'get away with it' as you have so elegantly expressed it. Suppose _you_ don't get away with it ...
suppose your husband divorces you ... what will become of you? How will you live? You're not equipped to make your own living. You couldn't even typewrite--like your sister. Suppose I were to divorce my husband, naming you as co-respondent: do you flatter yourself he would marry you?
And let us assume that he did: How long do you think it would last? He is a poor man. His profession is a purely speculative one. His income is assured for only two weeks at a time, except in rare instances. He couldn't give you the jewels, the furs, the motors and the luxuries you now enjoy. How long do you believe your mad passion would endure, stripped of little appurtenances like wine suppers and suites of rooms in the best hotels?... Perhaps you'd become an actress like so many women who look on the stage as an open sesame to a life of immorality.... Like so many women with a screw loose in their moral machinery ... no, don't you say a word! This is my scene--and I am going to hold the centre of the stage for once in my career!... I know your kind, mi-lady.... You belong to that great class of over-fed and under-bred women who make life so hard for the rest of their sex. You're one of the wasters; you waste what does not rightfully belong to you; what you usurp in your greediness, in your pandering to your vanities, in your compromise with your better instincts, in your connivance with the very devil who finds some mischief still for idle hands to do! You stimulate your passions with alcohol and mistake the fumes for love! You haven't the courage to come out and be a genuine prostitute, but you ply the trade in the role of an adulteress. For God's sake, wake up! Look yourself in the eyes before it is too late! If you have no self-respect, no respect for your sex, try at least to respect the rights of those little souls you've brought into the world without their asking. O, yes, cry!... Crocodile tears and alcoholic drool!... It's a mistake to believe that all women have the maternal instinct ... so have female cats and dogs--and rabbits." ...
I had risen as my fury sought to master me. I stood beside the bed looking down at her ... making an ineffectual last-ditch fight for my self-control. Something about the woman ... the very quality of her night-dress--the heavily jewelled fingers--maddened me. The poison coursed through my veins like quick-silver ... once before in my life I had felt it ... before my boy was born ... _then_ I had succumbed to a desire to wreak physical vengeance ... the same madness seized me now ... I saw her shrink from me....
"O, you--_you_ ----!"
... I didn't say it; I caught myself in time. The blood stained my face with shame--shame with the very coarseness of the thought; shame with the whole revolting situation. Was I, too, become impregnated with the corroding influence of my environment? I turned and walked toward the door. As I reached for the knob, it opened and some one entered abruptly. I jumped aside to avoid being struck.
I knew who he was though I had never seen him before. The next moment I had reached for his hand and grasped it impulsively, at the same time laying a warning finger on my lips and indicating the bed.
"O, Mr. F., you don't know how glad I am to see you. We've been worried to death ... she's asleep now, after the most racking night ... do you mind not waking her for the present?... of course if you'd rather ..." I waited while he looked at the figure of his wife, lying helpless with her face to the wall, while his eyes roved to question those of the sister, then back to mine with the single word:
"Sick?... How long has she been sick?"
"Ever since we arrived here; it's the grippe, I think, though we couldn't induce her to see a doctor. She's been so upset at not hearing from you.... Do you mind stepping into the hall where we can talk more freely without danger of disturbing her?... Edith will call us if she awakens, won't you, Edith?" ...
Edith did not call. The hall was draughty; I managed a sneeze. Mr. F.
suggested that we go down to the grill and have a drink. In the elevator I saw him glance furtively at me.... I was humming softly to myself. I watched his eyes in the mirror; they had a confused look not unmixed with suspicion. Not until after the second cocktail did he thaw a bit.
He asked me whether I had dined. I told him I had not. After he had ordered, he leaned back in his chair and gave me a penetrating look. I met his eyes and smiled a little.
"You look tired," I said.
"I am--rather. These sleeper jumps take it out of a fellow."
"They surely do ... and I presume you've been worried to death about Fannie." The name slipped glibly from my lips. He shot me a quick glance which told me the familiar use of his wife's name had been effective. He shifted uneasily in his seat as he answered.
"Well, yes----"