The Crux Part 28

Saunders--"one of these Farewell to Egypt affairs," he said. "Not that I imagine Jim Saunders ever was much of a--Egyptian--but then----!"

He consulted her also about Vivian--did she not think the girl looked worn and ill? Wouldn't it be a good thing to send her off for a trip somewhere?

He consulted her about a library; said he had always wanted a library of his own, but the public ones were somewhat in his way. How many books did she think a man ought really to own--to spend his declining years among. Also, and at considerable length he consulted her about the best possible place of residence.

"I'm getting to be an old man, Mrs. St. Cloud," he remarked meditatively; "and I'm thinking of buying and building somewhere. But it's a ticklish job. Lo! these many years I've been perfectly contented to live wherever I was at; and now that I'm considering a real Home--blamed if I know where to put it! I'm distracted between A Model Farm, and A Metropolitan Residence. Which would you recommend, Ma'am?"

The lady's sympathy and interest warmed to Mr. Skee as they cooled to Mr. d.y.k.eman, not with any blameworthy or noticeable suddenness, but in soft graduations, steady and continuous. The one wore his new glories with an air of modest pride; making no boast of affluence; and the other accepted that which had befallen him without rebellion.

Miss Orella's tender heart was deeply touched. As fast as Mrs. St.

Cloud gave the cold shoulder to her friend, she extended a warm hand; when they chatted about Mr. Skee's visible success, she spoke bravely of the beauty of limited means; and when it was time to present her weekly bills to the boarders, she left none in Mr. d.y.k.eman's room.

This he took for an oversight at first; but when he found the omission repeated on the following week, he stood by his window smiling thoughtfully for some time, and then went in search of Miss Orella.

She sat by her shaded lamp, alone, knitting a silk tie which was promptly hidden as he entered. He stood by the door looking at her in spite of her urging him to be seated, observing the warm color in her face, the graceful lines of her figure, the gentle smile that was so unfailingly attractive. Then he came forward, calmly inquiring, "Why haven't you sent me my board bill?"

She lifted her eyes to his, and dropped them, flus.h.i.+ng. "I--excuse me; but I thought----"

"You thought I couldn't conveniently pay it?"

"O please excuse me! I didn't mean to be--to do anything you wouldn't like. But I did hear that you were--temporarily embarra.s.sed. And I want you to feel sure, Mr. d.y.k.eman, that to your real friends it makes no difference in the _least_. And if--for a while that is--it should be a little more convenient to--to defer payment, please feel perfectly at liberty to wait!"

She stood there blus.h.i.+ng like a girl, her sweet eyes wet with s.h.i.+ning tears that did not fall, full of tender sympathy for his misfortune.

"Have you heard that I've lost all my money?" he asked.

She nodded softly.

"And that I can't ever get it back--shall have to do clerk's work at a clerk's salary--as long as I live?"

Again she nodded.

He took a step or two back and forth in the quiet parlor, and returned to her.

"Would you marry a poor man?" he asked in a low tender voice. "Would you marry a man not young, not clever, not rich, but who loved you dearly?

You are the sweetest woman I ever saw, Orella Elder--will you marry me?"

She came to him, and he drew her close with a long sigh of utter satisfaction. "Now I am rich indeed," he said softly.

She held him off a little. "Don't talk about being rich. It doesn't matter. If you like to live here--why this house will keep us both. If you'd rather have a little one--I can live _so_ happily--on _so_ little! And there is my own little home in Bainville--perhaps you could find something to do there. I don't care the least in the world--so long as you love me!"

"I've loved you since I first set eyes on you," he answered her. "To see the home you've made here for all of us was enough to make any man love you. But I thought awhile back that I hadn't any chance--you weren't jealous of that Artificial Fairy, were you?"

And conscientiously Miss Orella lied.

Carston society was pleased, but not surprised at Susie's engagement; it was both pleased and surprised when Miss Elder's was announced. Some there were who protested that they had seen it from the beginning; but disputatious friends taxed them with having prophesied quite otherwise.

Some thought Miss Elder foolish to take up with a man of full middle age, and with no prospects; and others attributed the foolishness to Mr. d.y.k.eman, in marrying an old maid. Others again darkly hinted that he knew which side his bread was b.u.t.tered--"and first-rate b.u.t.ter, too." Adding that they "did hate to see a man sit around and let his wife keep boarders!"

In Bainville circles the event created high commotion. That one of their acc.u.mulated maidens, part of the Virgin Sacrifice of New England, which finds not even a Minotaur--had thus triumphantly escaped from their ranks and achieved a husband; this was flatly heretical. The fact that he was a poor man was the only mitigating circ.u.mstance, leaving it open to the more captious to criticize the lady sharply.

But the calm contentment of Andrew d.y.k.eman's face, and the decorous bliss of Miss Elder's were untroubled by what anyone thought or said.

Little Susie was delighted, and teased for a double wedding; without success. "One was enough to attend to, at one time," her aunt replied.

In all this atmosphere of wooings and weddings, Vivian walked apart, as one in a bad dream that could never end. That day when Dr. Bellair left her on the hill, left her alone in a strange new horrible world, was still glaring across her consciousness, the end of one life, the bar to any other. Its small events were as clear to her as those which stand out so painfully on a day of death; all that led up to the pleasant walk, when an eager girl mounted the breezy height, and a sad-faced woman came down from it.

She had waited long and came home slowly, dreading to see a face she knew, dreading worst of all to see Morton. The boy she had known so long, the man she was beginning to know, had changed to an unbelievable horror; and the love which had so lately seemed real to her recoiled upon her heart with a sense of hopeless shame.

She wished--eagerly, desperately, she wished--she need never see him again. She thought of the man's resource of running away--if she could just _go_, go at once, and write to him from somewhere.

Distant Bainville seemed like a haven of safety; even the decorous, narrow, monotony of its dim life had a new attraction. These terrors were not in Bainville, surely. Then the sickening thought crept in that perhaps they were--only they did not know it. Besides, she had no money to go with. If only she had started that little school sooner! Write to her father for money she would not. No, she must bear it here.

The world was discolored in the girl's eyes. Love had become a horror and marriage impossible. She pushed the idea from her, impotently, as one might push at a lava flow.

In her wide reading she had learned in a vague way of "evil"--a distant undescribed evil which was in the world, and which must be avoided. She had known that there was such a thing as "sin," and abhorred the very thought of it.

Morton's penitential confessions had given no details; she had pictured him only as being "led astray," as being "fast," even perhaps "wicked." Wickedness could be forgiven; and she had forgiven him, royally. But wickedness was one thing, disease was another.

Forgiveness was no cure.

The burden of new knowledge so distressed her that she avoided the family entirely that evening, avoided Susie, went to her grandmother and asked if she might come and sleep on the lounge in her room.

"Surely, my child, glad to have you," said Mrs. Pettigrew affectionately. "Better try my bed--there's room a-plenty."

The girl lay long with those old arms about her, crying quietly. Her grandmother asked no questions, only patted her softly from time to time, and said, "There! There!" in a pleasantly soothing manner.

After some time she remarked, "If you want to say things, my dear, say 'em--anything you please."

In the still darkness they talked long and intimately; and the wise old head straightened things out somewhat for the younger one.

"Doctors don't realize how people feel about these matters," said Mrs.

Pettigrew. "They are so used to all kinds of ghastly things they forget that other folks can't stand 'em. She was too hard on you, dearie."

But Vivian defended the doctor. "Oh, no, Grandma. She did it beautifully. And it hurt her so. She told me about her own--disappointment."

"Yes, I remember her as a girl, you see. A fine sweet girl she was too. It was an awful blow--and she took it hard. It has made her bitter, I think, perhaps; that and the number of similar cases she had to cope with."

"But, Grandma--is it--_can_ it be as bad as she said? Seventy-five per cent! Three-quarters of--of everybody!"

"Not everybody dear, thank goodness. Our girls are mostly clean, and they save the race, I guess."

"I don't even want to _see_ a man again!" said the girl with low intensity.

"Shouldn't think you would, at first. But, dear child--just brace yourself and look it fair in the face! The world's no worse than it was yesterday--just because you know more about it!"

"No," Vivian admitted, "But it's like uncovering a charnel house!" she shuddered.

"Never saw a charnel house myself," said the old lady, "even with the lid on. But now see here child; you mustn't feel as if all men were Unspeakable Villains. They are just ignorant boys--and n.o.body ever tells 'em the truth. n.o.body used to know it, for that matter. All this about gonorrhea is quite newly discovered--it has set the doctors all by the ears. Having women doctors has made a difference too--lots of difference."