At the Age of Eve Part 20

"Well, I must hurry and dress for church," I said, looking nonchalantly out the window, for I knew that this would be another bomb. I have always been a notorious heathen in my family circles. I usually spend Sunday morning in the woods with a book of poetry or philosophy--sometimes with two or three children from the village--but I _never_ go to church.

The bomb exploded.

"Rufe, listen! Did you hear that? Going to church with her young man!"

"Well, it was his first request of me. I couldn't refuse it, could I?"

"Chalmers always has had a way of making people do exactly what he wishes," Rufe said, coming up to Cousin Eunice to kiss her good-by.

"I shall do as he wishes when I think it is right," I answered with some spirit, for it aroused me to think they should consider me an incipient "doormat wife." "But of course he will soon learn that I am not like his mother and Evelyn."

"G.o.d forbid that he should ever make you like them!" Cousin Eunice said, with so much fervor that I looked at her in surprise.

"You don't think that he made them--what they are?" I asked.

"I--don't know," she said, looking at me gravely. "He is masterful; but that is far from being a bad trait. I imagine that his att.i.tude toward you will be just what you make it. Be frank and sincere with him always--just as you are with the rest of the world. And never let him make you do anything that will lower your self-respect. Many wives do not know the meaning of that word."

"But Richard will always exalt his wife."

"Yes. He will exalt everything that is _his_--simply because he possesses self-respect himself, raised to the n-th power. You will be the best-dressed, the best-housed, the best-established woman in your set. And that set will be wherever he chooses to place you. If he rises politically you will have a brilliant course marked out before you; if he does not you will still have a life of luxury, leading the smart set in Charlotteville."

"_Don't_," I begged, for she had spoken half in earnest about the life in Charlotteville. "You know how I hate just plain society--the kind that Mrs. Chalmers and Evelyn love. It would be the extinction of me.

Above everything else on earth I love freedom. But I also love the 'paths of glory.'"

"And, don't you see, dear child, that if you tread these paths with a man as much older than yourself as Richard Chalmers is, and especially a man whose disposition tends toward tyranny, that you will march to the music that _he_ directs?"

"Well, if it's the music of his voice I shall bow my head and face the east whenever I hear it."

"Don't think that I am a croaker, but I am a married woman and older than you," she kept on, ignoring the extravagance of my last sentence, "and I may be able to give you some advice that will help you. You are a girl of an _intense_ nature, very candid, very kind-hearted, but alas, very impractical. Having been reared as you were you are naturally self-centered and visionary, with a capacity for development, but as yet you have not reached any very high degree of serenity or _strength_, in spite of all the pencil-marks you put in your little volume of _Marcus Aurelius_. You have never had to practise sacrifice, patience, endurance--any of the virtues which make a _woman_, and without which life is a vain thing."

"All those things will come with--marriage," I said.

"With marriage where the man recognizes an equal partners.h.i.+p," she amended.

"Cousin Eunice, you have no idea of what Richard thinks of me," I explained, feeling very grave myself by this time, but wis.h.i.+ng to set her right in regard to my standing with my lover. "Of course all of you still think of me as being ridiculously _young_ and irresponsible, somehow, just because I have never, as you say, been put to any test.

But Richard knows that I am a woman, capable of knowing my own mind--and he adores me--just as I do him."

"Dear," our voices had sunk low, and she came over and laid her hand upon my arm, "an adoring husband is a delightful thing--between the pages of a book. But you will need a man who loves and _trusts_ you."

"I am sure Richard does that."

"I hope so. It may be that you can be a power for good in his life, taking a sincere interest in his work, and letting your own honesty be a kind of bulwark to him in the corruption which will be sure to a.s.sail him in his career. Never _hedge_ with him, Ann, in the little things; then he will have an ideal of his wife which will keep _him_ from ever being tempted to hedge in the big things."

"You know it is not my nature to hedge," I replied, rather emphatically.

"You have never been tempted to," she answered. "I know that you would never come down to lying about the price of a fur coat, but luxuries happen not to be your weak point."

"Fortunately not," I said, with a little laugh, for the discussion seemed a waste of time to me. Still I know that newly engaged girls and brides have to listen to a lot of admonis.h.i.+ng from their female relatives. I wished, upon this occasion, that I could take mine as indifferently as I once saw a bride take hers. I was a child at the time, but even then I was impressed by the absurdity of a conventional aunt giving, in a well-modulated voice, the usual advice about "bear and forbear," as the pretty little bride-niece sat by and allowed big, conventional tears to roll down her cheeks, while she kept on industriously cleaning her diamond rings!

"What is my weak point?"

I asked the question, half hoping that the talk would be steered away from the radiant subject, but to my surprise I found that I was moving around in a circle.

"Your weak point is Richard Chalmers--now and for the rest of your life!"

"You mean?"

"I mean that you idealize him and wors.h.i.+p him."

"I do," I answered proudly.

"And he thinks you are the prettiest little creature he ever saw, so he wants you for his," she kept on, a.n.a.lyzing my feelings and his with such a persistent accuracy that I found myself hoping my bridal advice would be given me by some one with less power of character delineation than is possessed by a lady novelist.

"Ann, when a middle-aged man marries a young woman, especially if the man has money, he is likely to treat his wife less like a wife than a--mistress. He showers her with violets, kisses, diamonds; but he neither burdens her with his troubles nor calls upon her for help.

Now, this may be pleasant for the woman, if she be a certain type of woman, who marries a man to be 'taken care' of, but it is not conducive to character development. If the man is poor and the woman has to _cook_ she has a better chance to enter the kingdom of heaven; but this is a rare opportunity, for a young woman seldom marries a middle-aged _poor_ man."

"But surely you don't think that I am marrying Richard for his money?"

There was no reproach in my tone; I was simply astounded that any one could take such a view of the matter.

"Certainly not in cold-blood," she answered. "I think you are bewildered--hypnotized by the halo which you have placed upon his head; and the glitter of the man's amazing good looks."

"The halo was already there," I corrected, but not so staunchly as my conscience made me feel that I should have done. Cousin Eunice has a disagreeably convincing tone in argument.

"His good looks, while undeniably _there_, are enhanced by the luxury with which he surrounds himself--his handsome clothes are a distinct a.s.set. Can you deny it?"

"Certainly not! And his cigars are a joy. When I shook out my hair last night it was fragrant with the odor. He smoked, you know, out on the balcony."

"Ah, and then you thought that your hair was a halo--because it had the odor of his cigars in it!"

"Well, let's not get away from the subject of _his_ halo. I believe you said that I placed it around his head?"

"You have done so, Ann! That halo has lain all the years of your life in your imaginative mind. You have kept it in a sacred chamber of your thoughts, while every tale of chivalry and every record of n.o.ble deeds has sent you to that chamber with more golden virtues to weave into the beautiful crown. Then one day you suddenly storm that room and s.n.a.t.c.h up the halo to place it triumphantly upon the head of the first startlingly handsome man you meet!"

"If I have had a halo I have placed it upon the head of Richard Chalmers, who wears it so gracefully," I defended.

"I admit the grace," she said, still speaking gravely. "But--_does it fit_?"

"Well, he will be here in less than an hour," I replied, looking up at the clock in some alarm, for I felt that I must be very beautifully and carefully dressed upon this occasion. "I want you to come in and talk with him every time he comes, and maybe you will tell me if you think I need to take any tucks in the halo!"

At half-past ten he came. I was still up-stairs when I heard the gate click, but I ran to the window and gazed down upon him in silent satisfaction. He threw away his cigar and swung briskly up the walk, the morning sun s.h.i.+ning down upon his glossy hat, and changing it into an absurd kind of halo.

"How is my little girl?" he asked in a low tone as I met him in the hall. "Has it seemed a long time since last night?"

We pa.s.sed into the drawing-room and found chairs that would not be directly in the line of vision of any one who might be crossing the hall in front of the door. He caught my hand and pressed it, but there was no sudden attempt at a stolen kiss. This was exactly to my liking, for, above all things, I am _artistic_, and I should not care for a lover who came in and kissed me before there had been time for any display of feeling to warrant it. Yet I am saying nothing against this habit in _husbands_.

"Have you been waiting long?" he asked, his eyes wandering approvingly over my dressed-up, Sunday attire. I wore a pretty pink foulard silk, with a tiny white figure in it, the cream lace yoke and bit of black velvet ribbon at the collar managing some way to bring out the best there is in my eyes and complexion, for when pink and I are left alone we are not congenial. I felt a sudden sense of grat.i.tude toward the woman who had made the dress and put that yoke and collar to it, for I realized that Richard would be quick to detect any incompatibility of colors. His eyes were still approving when they strayed down to my high-heeled black suede shoes! and I felt sinfully proud of my instep.