CHAPTER XLVI
Isabelle"s house appeared to Vickers more like a comfortable country club or a small country inn than the home of a private family. There were people coming and going all the time. Isabelle seemed at a loss without a peopled background. "And they are all interesting," she said to her brother, with a touch of pride. "It"s the only place d.i.c.kie will stay in for any time,--he says I have the best collection of fakes he knows. But he likes to chatter with them." So far as Vickers could discover there was no special principle of selection in the conglomerate, except the vague test of being "interesting." Besides Gossom and Cairy and the Silvers and others of their kind there were Lane"s business friends, officers of the railroad, and men that Lane brought out to golf with or ride with. "We don"t go in for society," Isabelle explained, affecting a stronger indifference than she really felt for "merely smart people." She wished her brother to know that she had profited by her two years of New York life to gather about her intellectual people, and there was much clever talk at the Farm, to which Vickers paid an amused and bewildered attention.
From the quiet corner where Vickers looked on at the household these autumn days, he watched especially his brother-in-law. Lane could be at the Farm only for occasional days, and while there spent his time out of doors. He took small part in all the talk, but it amused him as might the vivacity of children. He left this personal side of life to Isabelle, content to be a pa.s.sive spectator of the little game she was playing; while, as Vickers judged from what Gossom and other men said, Lane himself had a more absorbing, more exacting game in the city, which he was playing with eminent success. "He"s getting close to the king row," Isabelle remarked to Vickers. "He was offered the presidency of some road of other out West. But we couldn"t go out there again to live!"
Of all the men and women who came and went at the Farm, Cairy was on the most familiar footing. "He likes to work here," Isabelle explained with pride, "and he amuses John more than most of them. Besides he"s very useful about the place!" Surely Cairy was pleasantly installed, as Conny would have said. He was delightful with the governess, who admired his light conversation, and he selected the pony for Molly, and taught her how to fall off gracefully. At domestic moments, which were rare, he effaced himself. He had a curious position in the household that puzzled Vickers.
He was accepted,--the wheels ran around him. Isabelle treated him with a jesting, frank intimacy, very much as she treated her brother. And Lane, Vickers decided, had distinctly more use for the limping Southerner than he had for most of the people at the house, including his brother-in-law.
Cairy was so completely out of Lane"s world of men that there were no standards of comparison for him.
"Tommy distracts John," Isabelle explained to Vickers. "If he only could play golf, I suspect John would steal him from me."
As the weeks pa.s.sed, however, Cairy was drawn to the city for longer intervals. The new play had not been a "Broadway success," in fact had been taken off after a short run, and Cairy"s money affairs were again becoming precarious, much to Isabella"s frank concern. "It"s the wretched condition of the theatre in our country," she complained; "to think that a few miserable newspaper writers can ruin the chances of a dramatist"s being heard! The managers become panicky, if it doesn"t go at once in New York.... There is a chance that they will put it on again somewhere West.
But Tom hasn"t much hope."
"It was a poor play," Fosd.i.c.k a.s.serted flatly. "And if you hadn"t heard it line by line from Tommy, you"d know it."
"No," Isabelle protested; "it"s lots cleverer than most things."
"I do not know how it may be with the theatre," Gossom put in at this point, "but more literature is produced in America to-day than at any other time in the world"s history!"
"Oh!"
"I don"t mean mere rhetoric, college writing," Gossom went on dogmatically; "but literature, things with blood to them in the language people use. Why, in the story contest for the _People"s_ there were at least fourteen masterpieces submitted, and not one of them had any reference to Europe, or showed the least trace of what college professors call style!" He turned triumphantly to Vickers, to whom he had previously expressed his conviction that America was the future home of all the arts. This was an idea in his patriotic creed.
"Fourteen masterpieces,--really!" drawled Fosd.i.c.k; "and how much a masterpiece, please? I must send you mine."
They had heard a good deal this week about the famous story contest for the _People"s_. Gossom, ignoring the gibe, continued:--
"We publish every month real literature, the kind that comes from the heart, the stuff of real human lives. I am tired of this silly whine about the lack of opportunities for genius in our country."
"It"s hard on Tommy, all the same," Isabelle concluded irrelevantly.
When Isabelle moved to New York for the winter, Vickers took Delia Conry West, and on his return after a few days in the city went up to the Farm, where Miss Betterton and Marian were still staying. He felt relieved to get back once more in the country that was now beginning its quiet preparation for winter. New York had overwhelmed him. And he could not but see that in the city he was something of a problem to his beautiful sister. She would not hear of his going to a hotel, and yet he was in the way. Vickers was not one to make an impression. And one must make an impression of some sort in Isabelle"s world. "He"s quaint, your brother," one of her friends said.
"But he"s locked up and the key is lost. Most people won"t take the time to hunt for keys or even open doors."
If he had been more the artist, had some _reclame_ from his music or his father"s money, he would have fitted in. But a subdued little man with a sandy beard, sunken eyes, and careless clothes,--no, he was queer, but not "interesting"! And Isabelle, in spite of her strong sisterly loyalty, was relieved when she saw him off at the station.
"It"s nice to think of you, Vickie, snugged away in the country, going around in your velveteens with a pipe in your mouth. Keep an eye on Molly and don"t flirt with Miss Betterton. I shall run up often, and you must come down for the opera when you want to hear some music."
So Vickers betook himself to his seclusion. And when he did run down for the opera, he found himself jostled in a worse jam of Isabelle"s occupations than before. Although she had just recovered from her yearly attack of grippe, and felt perpetually tired and exhausted, she kept up with her engagement list, besides going once a week to her boys" club, where Cairy helped her. Seeing her tired, restless face, Vickers asked her why she did it all.
"I should die if I sat back!" she answered irritably. "But I"ll go up to the Farm with you for a day or two.... There"s the ma.s.seuse--you"ll find some cigarettes in the drawer--don"t forget we dine early."...
When they reached the Farm the next afternoon, little Marian met them in the hall, dressed like a white doll. "How do you do, Mamma?" she said very prettily. "I am so glad to see you." And she held up her face to be kissed.
The little girl had thought all day of her mother"s coming, but she had not dared to ask the governess to meet her at the station; for "Mamma has not arranged it so." Isabelle looked at her daughter critically, and said in French to the English governess, "Too pale, my darling,--does she take her ride each day?"
Everything about the child"s life was perfectly arranged, all thought out, from her baths and her frocks and her meals to the books she read and the friends she should have. But to Vickers, who stood near, it seemed a strange meeting between mother and child.
That evening as Isabelle lay with a new novel before the blazing fire, too listless to read, Vickers remarked:--"A month of this would make you over, sis!"
"A month! I couldn"t stand it a week, even with you, Bud!"
"You can"t stand the other."
"Come! The rest cure idea is exploded. The thing to do nowadays is to vary your pursuits, employ different sets of nerve centres!" Isabelle quoted the famous Potts with a mocking smile. "You should see how I vary my activities,--I use a different group of cells every half hour. You don"t know how well I look after the family, too. I don"t neglect my job. Aren"t you comfortable here? Mary cooks very well, I think."
"Oh, Mary is all right.... You may shift the batteries, Belle, but you are burning up the wires, all the same."
"Let "em burn, then,--I"ve got to live! ... You see, Vickie, I am not the little girl you remember. I"ve grown up! When I was _down_ after Marian came, I did such a lot of thinking.... I was simple when I married, Vick. I thought John and I would spoon out the days,--at least read together and be great chums. But it didn"t turn out that way; you can"t live that sort of life these days, and it would be stupid. Each one has to develop his talent, you see, and then combine the gifts. John thinks and breathes the railroad. And when he"s off duty, he wants to exercise or go to the theatre and see some fool show. That"s natural, too,--he works hard. But I can"t do _his_ things,--so I do _my_ things. He doesn"t care.... To tell the truth, Vick, I suspect John wouldn"t miss me before the month"s bills were due, if I should elope to-night!"
"I am not so sure, Belle."
"Of course--don"t I know? That must be the case with most marriages, and it"s a good thing, perhaps."
Vickers suggested softly, "The Colonel"s way was good, too."
"Women didn"t expect much those days. They do now. Even the architects recognize the change in our habits."
"I don"t believe the architects have made any changes for Alice."
"Oh, Alice!" Isabelle pished. "She is just a mother."
"And the millions of others, men and women?"
"They copy those on top as fast as they can; the simple life is either compulsory or an affectation.... I don"t care for the unexpressive millions!"
(A Cairy phrase--Vickers recognized the mint.)
Isabelle rose, and drawing aside the curtains, looked out at the snowy gardens.
"See how stunning the poplars are against the white background! Do you remember, Vick, when we ran away from school and came up here together and spent two nights while they were telegraphing all over for us? What a different world! ... Well, good night, Buddie,--I must sleep up."
Yes, thought Vickers, as he lighted another cigarette, what a different world! That summed up the months since he had taken the steamer at Cherbourg. And what different people! Had he stood still while Isabelle and her friends had expanded, thrown off limitations? For her and the many others like her the intoxicating feast of life seemed to have been spread lavishly. With full purses and never sated appet.i.tes they rushed to the tables,--all running, out of breath, scenting opportunities, avid to know, to feel, to experience! "We are pa.s.sing through another renaissance," as Gossom had pompously phrased it. But with what a difference!
To-night as Vickers looked across the still white fields from his bedroom window, he was less concerned with the national aspect of the case than with what this renaissance meant to his sister. Even with the aid of the great Potts she could never keep the nerve-racking pace that she had set herself. And yet in actual expenditure of force, either mental or physical, what Isabelle did or any of her acquaintance did was not enough to tire healthy, full-grown women. There was maladjustment somewhere. What ailed this race that was so rapidly becoming neurasthenic as it flowered?
One thing was plain,--that so far as emotional satisfaction went Isabelle"s marriage was null, merely a convention like furniture. And John, as Vickers recognized in spite of his brother-in-law"s indifference to him, was a good husband. Fortunately Isabelle, in spite of all her talk, was not the kind to fill an empty heart with another love.... A suspicion of that had crossed his mental vision, but had faded almost at once.... Isabelle was another sort!
CHAPTER XLVII