"There is no reason why you should not take this one," said Miss Wimpole, philosophically. "I promise you that Mrs. Harmon shall have the money by to-night, since she is here. Your Uncle Richard will go and see her at once, of course, and he can manage it. They are on terms of intimacy," she added rather primly, for Helen Harmon was the only person in the world of whom she had ever been jealous.
"You always use such dreadfully correct language, Aunt Rachel," answered the young girl. "Why don"t you say that they are old friends? "Terms of intimacy" sounds so severe, somehow."
"You seem impatient, my dear," observed Miss Wimpole, as though stating a fact about nature.
"I am," answered Sylvia. "I know I am. You would be impatient if an escaped lunatic rushed into a shop and paid for your gloves, or your shoes, or your hat, and then rushed off again, goodness knows where.
Wouldn"t you? Don"t you think I am right?"
"You had better tell them to send the hat to the hotel," suggested Aunt Rachel, not paying the least attention to Sylvia"s appeal for justification.
"If I must take it, I may as well wear it at once, and look like a human being," said Sylvia. "That is, if you will really promise to send Mrs.
Harmon the eighty francs at once."
"I promise," answered Miss Wimpole, solemnly, and as she had never broken her word in her life, Sylvia felt that the difficulty was at an end.
The milliner smiled sweetly, and bowed them out.
"All the same," said Sylvia, as she walked up the street with the pretty hat on her head, "it is an outrageous piece of impertinence. Idiots ought not to be allowed to go about alone."
"I should think you would pity the poor fellow," said Miss Wimpole, with a sort of severe kindliness, that was genuine but irritating.
"Oh yes! I will pity him by and by, when I"m not angry," answered the young girl. "Of course--it"s all right, Aunt Rachel, and I"m not depraved nor heartless, really. Only, it was very irritating."
"You had better not say anything about it to your Uncle Richard, my dear. He is so fond of Archie"s mother that he will feel very badly about it. I will break it to him gently."
"Would he?" asked Sylvia, in surprise. "About herself, I should understand--but about that boy! I can"t see why he should mind."
"He "minds," as you call it, everything that has to do with Mrs.
Harmon."
Sylvia glanced at her companion, but said nothing, and they walked on in silence for some time. It was still hot, for the sun had not sunk behind the mountains; but the street was full of people, who walked about indifferent to the temperature, because Switzerland is supposed to be a cold country, and they therefore thought that it was their own fault if they felt warm. This is the principle upon which nine people out of ten see the world when they go abroad. And there was a fine crop of European and American varieties of the tourist taking the air on that afternoon, men, women, and children. The men who had huge field-gla.s.ses slung over their shoulders by straps predominated, and one, by whom Sylvia was particularly struck, was arrayed in blue serge knickerbockers, patent-leather walking-boots, and a very shiny high hat.
But there were also occasional specimens of what she called the human being--men in the ordinary garments of civilization, and not provided with opera-gla.s.ses. There were, moreover, young and middle-aged women in short skirts, boots with soles half an inch thick, complexions in which the hue of the boiled lobster vied with the deeper tone of the stewed cherry, bearing alpenstocks that rang and clattered on the pavement; women who, in the state of life to which Heaven had called them, would have gone to Margate or Staten Island for a Sunday outing, but who had rebelled against providence, and forced the men of their families to bring them abroad. And the men generally walked a little behind them and had no alpenstocks, but carried shawls and paper bundles, badges of servitude, and hoped that they might not meet acquaintances in Lucerne, because their women looked like angry cooks and had no particular luggage. Now and then a smart old gentleman with an eyegla.s.s, in immaculate grey or white, threaded his way along the pavement, with an air of excessive boredom; or a young couple pa.s.sed by, in the recognizable newness of honeymoon clothes, the young wife talking perpetually, and evidently laughing at the ill-dressed women, while the equally young husband answered in monosyllables, and was visibly nervous lest his bride"s remarks should be overheard and give offence.
Then there were children, obtrusively English children, taken abroad to be shown the miserable inferiority of the non-British world, and to learn that every one who had not yellow hair and blue eyes was a "nasty foreigner,"--unless, of course, the individual happened to be English, in which case nothing was said about hair and complexion. And also there were the vulgar little children of the not long rich, repulsively disagreeable to the world in general, but pathetic in the eyes of thinking men and women. They are the sprouting shoots of the gold-tree, beings predestined never to enjoy, because they will be always able to buy what strong men fight for, and will never learn to enjoy what is really to be had only for money; and the measure of value will not be in their hands and heads, but in bank-books, out of which their manners have been bought with mingled affection and vanity. Surely, if anything is more intolerable than a vulgar woman, it is a vulgar child. The poor little thing is produced by all nations and races, from the Anglo-Saxon to the Slav. Its father was happy in the struggle that ended in success. When it grows old, its own children will perhaps be happy in the sort of refined existence which wealth can bring in the third generation. But the child of the man grown suddenly rich is a living misfortune between two happinesses: neither a worker nor an enjoyer; having neither the satisfaction of the one, nor the pleasures of the other; hated by its inferiors in fortune, and a source of amus.e.m.e.nt to its ethic and aesthetic betters.
Sylvia had never thought much about the people she pa.s.sed in a crowd.
Thought is generally the result of suffering of some kind, bodily or intellectual, and she had but little acquaintance with either. She had travelled much, and had been very happy until the present time, having been shown the world on bright days and by pleasant paths. But to-day she was not happy, and she began to wonder how many of the men and women in the street had what she had heard called a "secret care." Her eyes had been red when she had at last yielded to Miss Wimpole"s entreaties to open the door, but the redness was gone already, and when she had tried on the hat before the gla.s.s she had seen with a little vanity, mingled with a little disappointment, that she looked very much as usual, after all. Indeed, there had been more than one moment when she had forgotten her troubles because the ribbons on the new hat stuck up too much. Yet she was really unhappy, and sad at heart. Perhaps some of the people she pa.s.sed, even the women with red faces, dusty skirts, and clattering alpenstocks, were unhappy too.
She was not a foolish girl, nor absurdly romantic, nor full of silly sentimentalities, any more than she was in love with Colonel Wimpole in the true sense of the word. For she knew nothing of its real meaning, and, apart from that meaning, what she felt for him filled all the conditions proposed by her imagination. If one could cla.s.sify the ways by which young people pa.s.s from childhood to young maturity, one might say that they are brought up by the head, by the imagination, or by the heart, and one might infer that their subsequent lives are chiefly determined by that one of the three which has been the leading-string.
Sylvia"s imagination had generally had the upper hand, and it had been largely fed and cultivated by her guardian, though quite unintentionally on his part. His love of artistic things led him to talk of them, and his chivalric nature found sources of enthusiasm in lofty ideals, while his own life, directed and moved as it was by a secret, unchanging and self-sacrificing devotion to one good woman, might have served as a model for any man. Modest, and not much inclined to think of himself, he did not realize that although the highest is quite beyond any one"s reach, the search after it is always upward, and may lead a good man very far.
Sylvia saw the result, and loved it for its own sake with an attachment so strong that it made her blind to the more natural sort of humanity which the colonel seemed to have outgrown, and which, after all, is the world as we inherit it, to love it, or hate it, or be indifferent to it, but to live with it, whether we will or not. He fulfilled her ideal, because it was an ideal which he himself had created in her mind, and to which he himself nearly approached. Logically speaking, she was in a vicious circle, and she liked what he had taught her to like, but liked it more than he knew she did.
Sylvia glanced at Miss Wimpole sideways. She knew her simple story, and wondered whether she herself was to live the same sort of life. The idea rather frightened her, to tell the truth, for she knew the aridity of the elderly maiden lady"s existence, and dreaded anything like it.
But it was very simple and logical and actual. Miss Wimpole had loved a man who had been killed. Of course she had never married, nor ever thought of loving any one else. It was perfectly simple. And Sylvia loved, and was not loved, as she told herself, and she also must look forward to a perpetually grey life.
Then, suddenly, she felt how young she was, and she knew that the colonel was almost an old man, and her heart rebelled. But this seemed disloyal, and she blushed at the word "unfaithful," which spoke itself in her sensitive conscience with the cruel power to hurt which such words have against perfect innocence. Besides, it was as if she were quarrelling with what she liked, because she could not have it, and she felt as though she were thinking childishly, which is a shame in youth"s eyes.
Also, she was nervous about meeting him again, for she had not seen him since she had fled from the room in tears, though he had seen her on the bridge. She wished that she might not see him at all for a whole day, at least, and that seemed a very long time.
Altogether, when she went into the hotel again, she was in a very confused state of mind and heart, and was beginning to wish that she had never been born. But that was childish, too.
CHAPTER IV
Helen Harmon was glad when the colonel was gone. She went to a mirror, fixed to the wall between the two windows of the room, and she carefully rearranged her hair. She could not feel quite herself until she knew that the scar was covered again and hidden from curious eyes. Then she sat down, glad to be alone. It had been a great and unexpected pleasure to see Wimpole, but the discovery he had made, and the things he had said, had disturbed and unnerved her.
There had been conviction in his voice when he had said that Harmon might recover, and the possibility of a change in her husband"s condition had crossed her mind more than once. She felt that a return to such a state of things as had made up her life before he had become insane, would kill her by slow torture. It was of no use any longer to tell herself that recovery was impossible, and to persuade herself that it was so by the mere repet.i.tion of the words. Words had no more weight, now.
She thought of her freedom since that merciful deliverance. It was not happiness, for there were other things yet to be suffered, but it was real freedom. She had her son"s affliction to bear, but she could bear it alone and go and come with him as she pleased. She contrasted this liberty with what she had borne for years.
The whole history of their married life came back to her, the gradual progress of it from first to last, if indeed it had yet reached the end and was not to go back to the beginning again.
First there had been the sort of half-contented resignation which many young women feel during the early months of married life, when they have made what is called by the world a good match, simply because they saw no reason for not marrying and because they were ashamed to own that they cared for a man who did not seem to be attached to them. Sometimes the state lasts throughout life, a neutral, pa.s.sionless, negative state, in which the heart turns flat and life is soon stale, a condition in which many women, not knowing what pain is, grow restless and believe that it must be pleasanter to be hurt than to feel nothing.
Henry Harmon had been handsome, full of life and nerve and enthusiasm for living, a rider, a sportsman, more reckless than brave and more brave than strong-minded, with a gift for being, or seeming to be, desperately in love, which had ultimately persuaded Helen to marry him in spite of her judgment. He turned pale when he was long near her, his eyes flashed darkly, his hands shook a little, and his voice trembled.
An older woman might have thought it all rather theatrical, but he seemed to suffer, and that moved Helen, though it did not make her really love him. Women know that weakness of theirs and are more afraid of pitying an importunate suitor than of admiring him. So Helen married Harmon.
Disillusionment came as daylight steals upon dancers in a ballroom. At first it was not so painful as might have been imagined, for Helen was not excessively sensitive, and she had never really loved the man in the least. He grew tired of her and left her to herself a good deal. That was a relief, at first, for after she had realized that she did not love him, she shrank from him instinctively, with something very like real shame, and to be left alone was like being respected.
"Mrs. Blank"s husband is neglecting her," says one.
"She does not seem to care; she looks very happy," answers another.
And she is temporarily happy, because Mr. Blank"s neglect gives her a sense of bodily relief, for she knows that she has made a mistake in marrying him. It was so with Helen, and as she was not a changeable nor at all a capricious person, it might have continued to be so. But Harmon changed rapidly in the years that followed. From having been what people called fast, he became dissipated. He had always loved the excitement of wine. When it failed him, he took to stronger stuff, which presently became the essential requisite of his being. He had been said to be gay, then he was spoken of as wild, then as dissipated.
Some people avoided him, and every one pitied Helen. Yet although he ruined his const.i.tution, he did not wreck his fortunes, for he was lucky in all affairs connected with money. There remained many among his acquaintances who could not afford to disapprove of him, because he had power.
He drank systematically, as some men do, for the sake of daily excitement, and Helen learned to know tolerably well when he was dangerous and when he might be approached with safety. But more than once she had made horrible mistakes, and the memories of them were like dreams out of h.e.l.l. In his drunkenness her face recalled other days to him, and forgotten words of pa.s.sion found thick and indistinct utterance. Once she had turned on him, white and desperate in her self-defence. He struck her on the forehead with a cut-gla.s.s decanter, s.n.a.t.c.hed from her toilet table. When she came to herself hours afterwards, it was daylight. Harmon was in a drunken sleep, and the blood on his face was hers.
She shuddered with pain from head to foot when she thought of it. Then had come strange lapses of his memory, disconnected speech, even hysterical tears, following senseless anger, and then he had ceased to recognize any one, and had almost killed one of the men who took care of him, so that it was necessary to take him to an asylum, struggling like a wild beast. Twice, out of a sense of duty, she had been to see whether he knew her, but he knew no one, and the doctors said it was a hopeless case. Since then she had received a simple confirmation of the statement every month, and there seemed to be no reason for expecting any change, and she felt free.
Free was the only word she could find, and she applied it to herself in a sense of her own, meaning that she had been liberated from the thraldom in which she had lived so many years face to face with his brutality, and hiding it from the world as best she could, protecting and defending his name, and refusing pity as she would have refused money had she been poor. People might guess what she suffered, but no one should know it from her, and no one but herself could tell the half of what she underwent.
Yet, now that it was all over, Wimpole suggested that it might begin again, unless she took measures to defend herself. But her heart revolted at the idea of a divorce. She wondered, as she tried to test herself, whether she could be as strong if the case really arose. It never occurred to her to ask whether her strength might not be folly, for it lay in one of those convictions by which unusual characters are generally moved, and conviction never questions itself.
It was not that in order to be divorced she must almost necessarily bring up in public and prove by evidence a certain number of her many wrongs. The publicity would be horrible. Every newspaper in the country would print the details, with hideous head-lines. Even her son"s deficiency would be dragged into the light. She should have to explain how she had come by the scar on her forehead, and much more that would be harder to tell, if she could bring her lips to speak the words.
Nevertheless, she could do that, and bear everything, for a good cause.
If, for instance, Archie"s future depended upon it, or even if it could do him some good, she could do all that for his sake. But even for his sake, she would not be divorced, not even if Harmon were let out of the asylum and came back to her.
Some people, perhaps many, could not understand such a prejudice, or conviction, now that all convictions are commonly spoken of as relative.
But will those who do not understand Helen Harmon consider how the world looked upon divorce as recently as five and twenty years ago? Nothing can give a clearer idea of the direction taken by social morality than the way in which half the world has become accustomed to regard marriage as a contract, and not as a bond, during the lifetime of people now barely in middle age.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago divorces were so rare as to be regarded in the light of very, uncommon exceptions to the general rule. The divorce law itself is not yet forty years old in England, nor twenty years old in France. In Italy there is no civil divorce whatever at the present day, and the Catholic Church only grants what are not properly divorces, but annullations of marriage, in very rare cases, and with the greatest reluctance.
Even in America, every one can remember how divorce was spoken of and thought of until very recently. Within a few years it was deemed to be something very like a disgrace, and certainly a profoundly cynical and immoral proceeding. To-day we can most of us count in our own acquaintance half a dozen persons who have been divorced and have married again. Whatever we may think of it in our hearts, or whatever our religious convictions may be on the subject, it has become so common that when we hear of a flagrant case of cruelty or unfaithfulness, by which a man or woman suffers, the question at once rises to our lips, "Why does he not divorce his wife?" or "Why does she not divorce her husband?" We have grown used to the idea, and, if it does not please us, it certainly does not shock us. It shocked our fathers, but we are perfectly indifferent.