Chambers Robert William
The Common Law
"Do you think there's anything the matter with my lungs?" he roared.
"No!—you perfect idiot!" said Rita, seating herself; "and if you shout that way at me again I'll go to dinner with Kelly and Valerie and leave you here alone. I will not permit you to be uncivil, John. Please remember it."
Neville arrived in excellent spirits, greeted everybody, and stood beside Valerie, carelessly touching the tip of his fingers to hers where they hung at her side.
"What's the matter with you, John? Rita, isn't he coming? I've a taxi outside ruining me."
"John has a bad cold and doesn't care to go—"
"Yes, I do!" growled John.
"And he doesn't care to risk contracting pneumonia," continued Rita icily, "and he isn't going, anyway. And if he behaves like a man instead of an overgrown baby, I have promised to stay and dine with him here. Otherwise I'll go with you."
"Sure. You'd better stay indoors, John. You ought to buck up and get rid of that cold. It's been hanging on all winter."
Burleson rumbled and grumbled and shot a mutinous glance at Rita, who paid it no attention.
"Order us a nice dinner at the Plaza, Kelly—if you don't mind," she said cheerfully, going with them to the door. She added under her breath: "I wish he'd see a doctor, but the idea enrages him. I don't see why he has such a cold all the time—and such flushed cheeks—" Her voice quivered and she checked herself abruptly.
"Suppose I ring up Dr. Colbert on my own hook?" whispered Neville.
"Would you?"
"Certainly. And you can tell John that I did it on my own responsibility."
Neville and Valerie went away together, and Rita returned to the studio. Burleson was reading again, and scowling; and he scarcely noticed her. She seated herself by the fire and looked into the big bare studio beyond where the electric light threw strange shadows over shrouded shapes of wet clay and blocks of marble in the rough or partly hewn into rough semblance of human figures.
It was a damp place at best; there were always wet sponges, wet cloths, pails of water, masses of moist clay about. Her blue eyes wandered over it with something approaching fear—almost the fear of hatred.
"John," she said, "why won't you go to a dry climate for a few months and get rid of your cold?"
"Do you mean Arizona?"
"Or some similar place: yes."
"Well, how am I to do any work out there? I've got commissions on hand. Where am I going to find any place to work out in Arizona?"
"Build a shanty."
"That's all very well, but there are no models to be had out there."
"Why don't you do some Indians?"
"Because," said John wrathfully, "I haven't any commissions that call for Indians. I've two angels, a nymph and a Diana to do; and I can't do them unless I have a female model, can I?"
After a silence Rita said carelessly:
"I'll go with you if you like."
"You! Out there!"
"I said so."
"To Arizona! You wouldn't stand for it!"
"John Burleson!" she said impatiently, "I've told you once that I'd go with you if you need a model! Don't you suppose I know what I am saying?"
He lay placidly staring at her, the heavy book open across his chest.
Presently he coughed and Rita sprang up and removed the book.
"You'd go with me to Arizona," he repeated, as though to himself—"just to pose for me…. That's very kind of you, Rita. It's thoroughly nice of you. But you couldn't stand it. You'd find it too cruelly stupid out there alone—entirely isolated in some funny town. I couldn't ask it of you—"
"You haven't. I've asked it—of you."
But he only began to grumble and fret again, thrashing about restlessly on the lounge; and the tall young girl watched him out of lowered eyes, silent, serious, the lamplight edging her hair with a halo of ruddy gold.
* * * * *
The month sped away very swiftly for Valerie. Her companionship with Rita, her new friendship for Hélène d'Enver, her work, filled all the little moments not occupied with Neville. It had been a happy, exciting winter; and now, with the first days of spring, an excitement and a happiness so strange that it even resembled fear at moments, possessed her, in the imminence of the great change.
Often, in these days, she found herself staring at Neville with a sort of fixed fascination almost bordering on terror;—there were moments when alone with him, and even while with him among his friends and hers, when there seemed to awake in her a fear so sudden, so inexplicable, that every nerve in her quivered apprehension until it had passed as it came. What those moments of keenest fear might signify she had no idea. She loved, and was loved, and was not afraid.
In early April Neville went to Ashuelyn. Ogilvy was there, also Stephanie Swift.
His sister Lily had triumphantly produced a second sample of what she could do to perpetuate the House of Collis, and was much engrossed with nursery duties; so Stephanie haunted the nursery, while Ogilvy, Neville, and Gordon Collis played golf over the April pastures, joining them only when Lily was at liberty.
Why Stephanie avoided Neville she herself scarcely knew; why she clung so closely to Lily's skirts seemed no easier to explain. But in her heart there was a restlessness which no ignoring, no self-discipline could suppress—an unease which had been there many days, now—a hard, tired, ceaseless inquietude that found some little relief when she was near Lily Collis, but which, when alone, became a dull ache.
She had grown thin and spiritless within the last few months. Lily saw it and resented it hotly.
"The child," she said to her husband, "is perfectly wretched over Louis and his ignominious affair with that West girl. I don't know whether she means to keep her word to me or not, but she's with him every day. They're seen together everywhere except where Louis really belongs."
"It looks to me," said Gordon mildly, "as though he were really in love with her."
"Gordon! How can you say such a thing in such a sympathetic tone!"
"Why—aren't you sorry for them?"
"I'm sorry for Louis—and perfectly disgusted. I was sorry for her; an excess of sentimentality. But she hasn't kept her word to me."
"Did she promise not to gad about with him?"
"That was the spirit of the compact; she agreed not to marry him."
"Sometimes they—don't marry," observed Gordon, twirling his thumbs.
Lily looked up quickly; then flushed slightly.
"What do you mean, Gordon?"
"Nothing specific; anything in general."
"You mean to hint that—that Louis—Louis Neville could be—permit himself to be so common—so unutterably low—"
"Better men have taken the half-loaf."
"Gordon!" she exclaimed, scarlet with amazement and indignation.
"Personally," he said, unperturbed, "I haven't much sympathy with such affairs. If a man can't marry a girl he ought to leave her alone; that's my idea of the game. But men play it in a variety of ways. Personally, I'd as soon plug a loaded shot-gun with mud and then fire it, as block a man who wants to marry."
"I did block it!" said Lily with angry decision; "and I am glad I did."
"Look out for the explosion then," he said philosophically, and strolled off to see to the setting out of some young hemlocks, headed in the year previous.
Lily Collis was deeply disturbed—more deeply than her pride and her sophistication cared to admit. She strove to believe that such a horror as her husband had hinted at so coolly could never happen to a Neville; she rejected it with anger, with fear, with a proud and dainty fastidiousness that ought to have calmed and reassured her. It did not.
Once or twice she reverted to the subject, haughtily; but Gordon merely shrugged:
"You can't teach a man of twenty-eight when, where, and how to fall in love," he said. "And it's all the more hopeless when the girl possesses the qualities which you once told me this girl possesses."
Lily bit her lip, angry and disconcerted, but utterly unable to refute him or find anything in her memory of Valerie to criticise and condemn, except the intimacy with her brother which had continued and which, she had supposed, would cease on Valerie's promise to her.
"It's very horrid of her to go about with him under the circumstances—knowing she can't marry him if she keeps her word," said Lily.
"Why? Stephanie goes about with him."
"Do you think it is good taste to compare those two people?"
"Why not. From what you told me I gather that Valerie West is as innocent and upright a woman as Stephanie—and as proudly capable of self-sacrifice as any woman who ever loved."
"Gordon," she said, exasperated, "do you actually wish to see my brother marry a common model?"
"Is she common? I thought you said—"
"You—you annoy me," said Lily; and began to cry.
Stephanie, coming into the nursery that afternoon, found Lily watching the sleeping children and knitting a tiny sweater. Mrs. Collis was pale, but her eyes were still red.
"Where have you been, Stephanie?"
"Helping Gordon set hemlocks."
"Where is Louis?"
The girl did not appear to hear the question.
"I thought I heard him telephoning a few minutes ago," added Lily. "Look over the banisters, dear, and see if he's still there."
"He is," said Stephanie, not stirring.
"Telephoning all this time? Is he talking to somebody in town?"
"I believe so."
Lily suddenly looked up. Stephanie was quietly examining some recently laundered clothing for the children.
"To whom is Louis talking; do you happen to know?" asked Lily abruptly.
Stephanie's serious gaze encountered hers.
"Does that concern us, Lily?"
After a while, as Mrs. Collis sat in silence working her ivory needles, a tear or two fell silently upon the little white wool garment on her lap.
And presently Stephanie went over and touched her forehead with gentle lips; but Lily did not look up—could not—and her fingers and ivory needles flew the faster.
"Do you know," said Stephanie in a low voice, "that she is a modest, well-bred, and very beautiful girl?"
"What!" exclaimed Lily, staring at her in grief and amazement. "Of whom are you speaking, Stephanie?"
"Of Valerie West, dear."
"W-what do you know about her?"
"I have met her."
"You!"
"Yes. She came, with that rather common countess, as substitute delegate for Mrs. Hind-Willet, to a New Idea meeting. I spoke to her, seeing she was alone and seemed to know nobody; I had no suspicion of who she was until she told me."
"Mrs. Hind-Willet is a busybody!" said Lily, furious. "Let her fill her own drawing-room with freaks if it pleases her, but she has no right to send them abroad among self-respecting people who are too unsuspicious to protect themselves!"
Stephanie said: "Until one has seen and spoken with Valerie West one can scarcely understand how a man like your brother could care so much for her—"
"How do you know Louis cares for her?"
"He told me."
Lily looked into the frank, gray eyes in horror unutterable. The crash had come. The last feeble hope that her brother might come to his senses and marry this girl was ended forever.
"How—could he!" she stammered, outraged. "How could he tell—tell you—"
"Because he and I are old and close friends, Lily…. And will remain so, God willing."
Lily was crying freely now.
"He had no business to tell you. He knows perfectly well what his father and mother think about it and what I think. He can't marry her! He shall not. It is too cruel—too wicked—too heartless! And anyway—she promised me not to marry him—"
"What!"
Lily brushed the tears from her eyes, heedless now of how much Stephanie might learn.
"I wrote her—I went to see her in behalf of my own family as I had a perfect right to. She promised me not to marry Louis."
"Does Louis know this?"
"Not unless she's told him…. I don't care whether he does or not! He has disappointed me—he has embittered life for me—and for his parents. We—I—I had every reason to believe that he and—you—"
Something in Stephanie's gray eyes checked her. When breeding goes to pieces it makes a worse mess of it than does sheer vulgarity.
"If I were Louis I would marry her," said Stephanie very quietly. "I gave him that advice."
She rose, looking down at Lily where she sat bowed over her wool-work, her face buried in her hands.
"Think about it; and talk patiently with Louis," she said gently.
Passing the stairs she glanced toward the telephone. Louis was still talking to somebody in New York.
* * * * *
It was partly fear of what her husband had hinted, partly terror of what she considered worse still—a legal marriage—that drove Lily Collis to write once more to Valerie West:
"DEAR MISS WEST: It is not that I have any disposition to doubt your word to me, but, in view of the assurance you have given me, do you consider it wise to permit my brother's rather conspicuous attentions to you?
"Permit me, my dear Miss West, as an older woman with wider experience which years must bring, to suggest that it is due to yourself to curtail an intimacy which the world—of course mistakenly in your case—views always uncharitably.
"No man—and I include my brother as severely as I do any man—has a right to let the world form any misconception as to his intentions toward any woman. If he does he is either ignorant or selfish and ruthless; and it behooves a girl to protect her own reputation.
"I write this in all faith and kindliness for your sake as well as for his. But a man outlives such things, a woman never. And, for the sake of your own future I beg you to consider this matter and I trust that you may not misconstrue the motive which has given me the courage to write you what has caused me deepest concern.
"Very sincerely yours,
"LILY COLLIS."
To which Valerie replied:
"MY DEAR, MRS. COLLIS: I have to thank you for your excellent intentions in writing me. But with all deference to your wider experience I am afraid that I must remain the judge of my own conduct. Pray, believe that, in proportion to your sincerity, I am grateful to you; and that I should never dream of being discourteous to Mr. Neville's sister if I venture to suggest to her that liberty of conscience is a fundamental scarcely susceptible of argument or discussion.
"I assume that you would not care to have Mr. Neville know of this correspondence, and for that reason I am returning to you your letter so that you may be assured of its ultimate destruction.
"Very truly yours,
"VALERIE WEST."
Which letter and its reply made Valerie deeply unhappy; and she wrote Neville a little note saying that she had gone to the country with Hélène d'Enver for a few days' rest.
The countess had taken a house among the hills at Estwich; and as chance would have it, about eight miles from Ashuelyn and Penrhyn Cardemon's great establishment, El Naúar.
Later Valerie was surprised and disturbed to learn of the proximity of Neville's family, fearing that if Mrs. Collis heard of her in the neighbourhood she might misunderstand.
But there was only scant and rough communication between Ashuelyn and Estwich; the road was a wretched hill-path passable only by buck-boards; Westwich was the nearest town to Ashuelyn and El Naúar and the city of Dartford, the county seat most convenient to Estwich.
Spring was early; the Estwich hills bloomed in May; and Hélène d'Enver moved her numerous household from the huge Castilione Apartment House to Estwich and settled down for a summer of mental and physical recuperation.
Valerie, writing to Neville the first week in May, said:
"Louis, the country here is divine. I thought the shaggy, unkempt hills of Delaware County were heavenly—and they were when you came and made them so—but this rich, green, well-ordered country with its hills and woods and meadows of emerald—its calm river, its lovely little brooks, its gardens, hedges, farms, is to me the most wonderful land I ever looked upon.
"Hélène has a pretty house, white with green blinds and verandas, and the loveliest lawns you ever saw—unless the English lawns are lovelier.
"To my city-wearied eyes the region is celestial in its horizon-wide quiet. Only the ripple of water in leafy ravines—only the music of birds breaks the silence that is so welcome, so blessed.
"To-day Hélène and I picked strawberries for breakfast, then filled the house with great fragrant peonies, some of which are the colour of Brides' roses, some of water-lilies.
"I'm quite mad with delight; I love the farm with its ducks and hens and pigeons; I adore the cattle in the meadow. They are fragrant. Hélène laughs at me because I follow the cows about, sniffing luxuriously. They smell like the clover they chew.
"Louis, dear, I have decided to remain a week here, if you don't mind. I'm a little tired, I think. John Burleson, poor boy, does not need me. I'm terribly worried about him. Rita writes that there is no danger of pneumonia, but that Dr. Colbert is making a careful examination. I hope it is not lung trouble. It would be too tragic. He is only twenty-seven. Still, they cure such things now, don't they? Rita is hoping he will go to Arizona, and has offered to go with him as his model. That means—if she does go—that she'll nurse him and take care of him. She is devoted to him. What a generous girl she is!
"Dear, if you don't need me, or are not too lonely without seeing me come fluttering into your studio every evening at tea-time, I would really like to remain here a few days longer. I have arranged business so that I can stay if it is agreeable to you. Tell me exactly how you feel about it and I will do exactly as you wish—which, please God—I shall always do while life lasts.
"Sam came up over Sunday, lugging Harry Annan and a bulldog—a present for Hélène. Sam is so sentimental about Hélène!
"And he's so droll about it. But I've seen him that way before; haven't you? And Hélène, bless her heart, lets him make eyes at her and just laughs in that happy, wholesome way of hers.
"She's a perfect dear, Louis; so sweet and kind to me, so unaffected, so genuine, so humorous about herself and her funny title. She told me that she would gladly shed it if she were not obliged to shed her legacy with it. I don't blame her. What an awful title—when you translate it!
"Sam is temporarily laid up. He attempted to milk a cow and she kicked him; and he's lying in a hammock and Hélène is reading to him, while Harry paints her portrait. Oh, dear—I love Harry Annan, but he can't paint!
"Dearest—as I sit here in my room with the chintz curtains blowing and the sun shining on the vines outside my open windows, I am thinking of you; and my girl's heart is very full—very humble in the wonder of your love for me—a miracle ever new, ever sweeter, ever holier.
"I pray that it be given to me to see the best way for your happiness and your welfare; I pray that I may not be confused by thought of self.
"Dear, the spring is going very swiftly. I can scarcely believe that May is already here—is already passing—and that the first of June is so near.
"Will you always love me? Will you always think tenderly of me—happily—! Alas, it is a promise nobody can honestly make. One can be honest only in wishing it may be so.
"Dearest of men, the great change is near at hand—nearer than I can realise. Do you still want me? Is the world impossible without me? Tell me so, Louis; tell me so now—and in the years to come—very often—very, very often. I shall need to hear you say it; I understand now how great my need will be to hear you say it in the years to come."
Writing to him in a gayer mood a week later:
"It is perfectly dear of you to tell me to remain. I do miss you; I'm simply wild to see you; but I am getting so strong, so well, so deliciously active and vigorous again. I was rather run down in town. But in the magic of this air and sunshine I have watched the reincarnation of myself. I swim, I row, I am learning to sit a horse; I play tennis—and I flirt, Monsieur—shamelessly, with Sam and Harry. Do you object—
"We had such a delightful time—a week-end party, perfectly informal and crazy; Mrs. Hind-Willet—who is such a funny woman, considering the position she might occupy in society—and José Querida—just six of us, until—and this I'm afraid you may not like—Mrs. Hind-Willet telephoned Penrhyn Cardemon to come over.
"You know, Louis, he seems a gentleman, though it is perfectly certain that he isn't. I hate and despise him; and have been barely civil to him. But in a small company one has to endure such things with outward equanimity; and I am sure that nobody suspects my contempt for him and that my dislike has not caused one awkward moment."
She wrote again:
"I beg of you not to suggest to your sister that she call on me. Try to be reasonable, dear. Mrs. Collis does not desire to know me. Why should she? Why should you wish to have me meet her? If you have any vague ideas that my meeting her might in any possible way alter a situation which must always exist between your family and myself, you are utterly mistaken, dearest.
"And my acquaintance with Miss Swift is so slight—I never saw her but once, and then only for a moment!—that it would be only painful and embarrassing to her if you asked her to call on me. Besides, you are a man and you don't understand such things. Also, Mrs. Collis and Miss Swift have only the slightest and most formal acquaintance with Hélène; and it is very plain that they are as content with that acquaintance as is Hélène. And in addition to that, you dear stupid boy, your family has carefully ignored Mr. Cardemon for years, although he is their neighbour; and Mr. Cardemon is here. And to cap the climax, your father and mother are at Ashuelyn. Can't you understand?
"Dearest of men, don't put your family and yourself—and me—into such a false position. I know you won't when I have explained it; I know you trust me; I know you love me dearly.
"We had a straw ride. There's no new straw, of course, so we had a wagon filled with straw from one of the barns and we drove to Lake Gentian and Querida was glorious in the moonlight with his guitar.
"He's so nice to me now—so like himself. But I hate Penrhyn Cardemon and I wish he would go; and he's taken a fancy to me, and for Hélène's sake I don't snub him—the unmitigated cad!
"However, it takes all kinds to make even the smallest of house parties; and I continue to be very happy and to write to you every day.
"Sam is queer. I'm beginning to wonder whether he is really in love with Hélène. If he isn't he ought to have his knuckles rapped. Of course, Hélène will be sensible about it. But, Louis, when a really nice man behaves as though he were in love with a woman, no matter how gaily she laughs over it, it is bound to mean something to her. And men don't seem to understand that."
"Mrs. Hind-Willet departs to-morrow. Sam and Harry go to Ashuelyn; Mr. Cardemon to his rural palace, I devoutly trust; which will leave José to Hélène and me; and he's equal to it.
"How long may I stay, dear? I am having a heavenly time—which is odd because heaven is in New York just now."
Another letter in answer to one of his was briefer:
"My Darling:
"Certainly you must go to Ashuelyn if your father and mother wish it. They are old, dear; and it is a heartless thing to thwart the old.
"Don't think of attempting to come over here to see me. The chances are that your family would hear of it and it would only pain them. Any happiness that you and I are ever to have must not be gained at any expense to them.
"So keep your distance, Monsieur; make your parents and your sister happy for the few days you are to be there; and on Thursday I will meet you on the 9.30 train and we will go back to town together.
"I am going anyway, for two reasons; I have been away from you entirely too long, and—the First of June is very, very near.
"I love you with all my heart, Louis.
"Valerie West."
