RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
The Munsey Magazine, July 1924, with "His Own People"
Emily Lanier, twenty years old and newly married, prepares to meet her husband Denis's English family for the first time—alone, because Denis has been sent suddenly to New Orleans for work. She is terrified of their judgment and painfully aware of their disapproval of her as an American stenographer of modest background. Denis's mother had opposed the marriage from the start. Emily goes to the hotel where Mrs. Lanier and her daughter Cynthia are staying. The meeting is a disaster...
AFTER each stroke of the brush her bright hair flew out in glittering threads, and in the strong light that centered upon the mirror her vivid little face seemed framed in a sort of unearthly radiance. She looked at the reflected image, at her great, solemn amber eyes, at her white shoulders, at that sparkling flood of hair.
A brief moment of joy that was, however, for almost at once came other thoughts that put an end to it. She grew disconsolate and troubled. With a sigh she threw down the hairbrush, and, going over to the table, picked up her book. Being pretty wasn't going to do her any good. On the contrary, it might well be another charge against her, another offense in a list already very long.
"They'll say he married me just because I'm pretty," she reflected.
And it was not so! Her incomparable Denis had seen and loved and praised all those things in her heart of which she was honestly proud. He loved her because she was valiant and loyal and tender.
"Of course, he does like my looks," she thought; "but even when I'm old and ugly, he'll still feel the same toward me. He said so—and I know it!"
But how was she to make these terrible people see all that? What she needed for the ordeal before her was dignity, assurance, poise—that was it. She had even gone so far as to buy a book on etiquette, to find the secret. Useless! No situation like hers was mentioned in the portentous volume. The bride received a visit from her husband's family, or he brought her to visit them, but there was no help offered to a bride who was suddenly commanded to go all alone to meet her new people for the first time.
She looked through the pages again. "The Etiquette of Weddings"—there had been precious little of that about their wedding—just she and Denis and a strange clergyman, with a deaconess and the sexton for witnesses. "The Bride's Family"—hers was hundreds of miles away, in Maine. "The Groom's Family"—she closed the book violently.
"I ought to be ashamed of myself!" she cried.
It seemed like treachery toward her own people, this fear of Denis's family. There was no reason on earth why she shouldn't go to them with her head high, no reason why she shouldn't have poise. She must; she would summon it up from the depth of her anxious heart, so that she might do credit to her Denis.
"And they may be very nice to me," she said to herself, without for an instant believing in the probability.
She remembered the letters that Denis had received from his mother after he had written to tell her of his engagement. He had never read a word of them to Emily, but his face told her enough, and the black gloom that settled over him. He admitted that his mother wanted him to wait—he didn't say how long, or for what, but Emily knew very well. His mother was hoping that time would cure his deplorable and unaccountable folly of wishing to marry an American stenographer.
Well, it hadn't. Their engagement had lasted five months—not a very happy time for either of them, because of the depression that seized Denis every time he had a letter from his people, or was in any way reminded of them. Emily had endured this with admirable patience. She knew that he loved her with all his honest heart, that he was proud of her, and that he couldn't help his queer, tribal notions about his family. He was always saying that "a fellow owes it to his family" to do this or that, and it was the strongest possible proof of his love for Emily that he clung to her in spite of their opposition.
Still, no matter how willing she was to understand Denis's point of view, Emily couldn't be expected to share his reverence for his relatives. On the contrary, she often found it very hard to hold her tongue—as, for instance, on the day when he came to her with the air of an absolutely desperate man, and told her that he was ordered off to New Orleans on forty-eight hours' notice, to survey a damaged hull, and that they must be married before he left.
When she objected, he threatened to throw up the whole business—that flourishing business as a marine surveyor which was the very apple of his eye—because he could not and would not leave Emily unless he left her as his wife. She was secretly delighted by this impetuous and domineering conduct, and sorry for him, too, because he was so obviously upset; and yet she was exasperated. He couldn't hide the fact that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in affronting his sacrosanct people for her sake.
After the wedding he had sent a cable announcing it to his mother. Then a reckless gayety had come over him, like that of a man who has nothing more to lose.
"I don't care!" said Emily to herself, with tears in her eyes. "It's all part of his darlingness. He's so terribly loyal!"
Of course, he hadn't imagined that his family would descend upon Emily like this, when he was away. He had expected them to stay in England, where they belonged. He would have been appalled at the thought of this meeting.
The latest development had come upon Emily like a thunderbolt. That morning a letter had been brought up to her, and, without the faintest suspicion, she had opened it to read:
My Dear Emily:
I should be very pleased if you would dine with us this evening at half past seven.
Most sincerely yours, Maude Lanier.
She had sent a messenger boy with her acceptance, because she knew that that was what Denis would have wished; but she couldn't make the best of it, couldn't recapture the smiling, careless bravery that Denis so loved in her. She had had courage enough to leave her dear, shabby old home at eighteen and go off to try her luck in the wide world. She had been able to give Denis the most gallant, bright farewell. She had faced more than one black moment in her twenty years, but she could not face Denis's family untroubled.
She had given herself two hours to dress in, and she needed every second of the time. Her prettiness seemed to ebb away with every breath she drew. That radiant hair was an unruly tangle when she tried to put it up. The brightness fled from her face, leaving it pale and strained. The dark dress that Denis had admired so much was admirable no longer, but austerely plain and grievously unbecoming. Emily could have wept at her own image in the mirror.
"I look so—so mean!" she cried, with a sob. "Such a meek, scared, silly little object!"
This wouldn't do. The thing that the serious Denis had loved best of all in her was her absurd, delightful gayety. She straightened her shoulders and drew a long breath.
"You know," she said to her own reflection, "Denis picked you out from all the other girls in the world, and now you've simply got to show the reason why. Even if you're hideous, you needn't be dismal. Here goes!"
So she managed a smile, after all.
She had been Mrs. Denis Lanier for only five weeks, had had a check book and money to spend for the same short time, and it was still a little intoxicating. She ordered a taxi from her room by telephone, and when it was announced she went down into the lobby almost her own debonair self again. Think of Mrs. Denis Lanier, in a fur coat and a pearl necklace, getting into her taxi!
Her father was a professor in a small New England college, and Emily had been brought up with a full understanding of the woeful discrepancy between the tastes and the incomes of professors and their families. She had learned to be happy without any of the things for which her young heart thirsted. It was the very essence of her nature to be happy; but it cannot be denied that she was a hundred times more happy now that she possessed some share of worldly goods. She wished and tried to be high-minded, and still she couldn't forget her pearl necklace.
MRS. LANIER was established in a hotel of the sort which Emily had never yet entered. Directly she entered its august portals, she felt herself dwindle again. What were her fur coat and her necklace here? Who was Mrs. Denis Lanier? Nothing at all!
She went up to the desk and told the haughty young man there that Mrs. Denis Lanier wished to see Mrs. Cecil Lanier; and then she waited.
It was the waiting that unnerved her. If some one had come at once, if she had been taken upstairs without delay, her courage might have held out; but to sit there, alone and unregarded, while fifteen endless minutes went by, was too much for her. She began seriously to contemplate running away.
"She's doing it on purpose—just to be rude and hateful!" she thought. "I won't stay! Denis wouldn't want me to stay. It's humiliating and—"
She was aware then that some one had come up behind her and stopped at her side, looking down at her. What is more, she felt certain that it was a critical, hostile look.
"Very well!" said she to herself. "Go ahead and stare! It doesn't bother me the least little bit in the world!"
She sat quite still, trying valiantly not to care; but it was unendurable. She felt her face flush. She stirred uneasily, and very soon she turned, to glance up into a pair of glacial blue eyes.
"Is this Emily?" asked the other. "I fancied so."
Remarkable, the implications that could be put into six short words!
"Yes," said Emily. "I'm—I am. And you're—this is Denis's mother?"
For a moment they regarded each other in silence, and each with the same thought, almost audible:
"I knew you'd be like this!"
Of course Denis's mother was like this—a handsome, gray-haired woman, tall, rather angular, with a disdainful nose and a faint, chilly little smile. In spite of her queer, stiff, high-waisted figure, her very unbecoming coiffure, her positively ugly black satin dress, she produced an effect of extraordinary magnificence.
"It's very odd of Denis to go off that way," she said.
"He couldn't help it," returned Emily hotly. "He had to go."
"Cecil, my younger son, called in at Denis's office directly we landed, and he was told that Denis had gone away," Mrs. Lanier went on, without noticing the interruption. "As soon as we had his cable, we arranged to come. It seems to me very odd that he should run off like that! However"—she paused for a moment, looking carefully at Emily—"perhaps we'd better dine upstairs, alone," she added, "instead of in the restaurant. I know quite a number of people here."
With burning cheeks and eyes averted, Emily murmured:
"That would be nicer."
As they walked together toward the lift, she tried to smile, to talk brightly; but she was terribly hurt—even more hurt than angry.
But this was Denis's mother, a person of supreme importance in his world. He couldn't help but be influenced by her opinion; so her opinion must be favorable.
"Is it—do you find it comfortable here?" Emily asked politely.
Mrs. Lanier seemed surprised that any one should imagine her comfortable here. She smiled wearily.
"I've been in the States before," she answered. "I dare say I shall do very well for a time. I'm sorry, though, to hear that you and Denis are going to live about in hotels."
"But we're not! We're going to start housekeeping just as soon as he—"
"Denis is very domestic, like his father. I'm sorry to think of his having to live about in hotels," Mrs. Lanier went on. "However—"
She preceded Emily down a corridor. At the end she opened a door, and they entered a small sitting room.
"We must have a little chat," said Mrs. Lanier, "before Cecil comes in."
She took up a packet of letters from the console near her, and began looking over them.
"Let me see," she said. "Ah, here it is! 'She is only twenty, and very young for her age,' Denis tells me. Are you really? And then he says—let me see—'a remarkably sweet disposition.' That's very nice, I'm sure. 'Her people are thoroughly respectable, decent people, but they'—well, no matter. 'She is a very clever and amusing girl.'"
This went on for an intolerable time. Extracts from poor Denis's letters were read aloud, as if for purposes of comparison with the real Emily, and from time to time Mrs. Lanier asked very direct questions about her parents, her education, her financial position. In the end, Emily had an excellent picture of herself as she appeared to Denis's mother—a silly, awkward girl, without money or position, who had somehow cajoled a fine young man to his destruction.
She made no attempt to defend herself. She had no great talent for that. She was a sensitive, impulsive creature, quite lacking in self-satisfaction. Moreover, she was very young and inexperienced, and perhaps a little too willing to learn.
She began to think that she really was the contemptible creature that Mrs. Lanier believed her to be. A sense of guilt oppressed her. She sat before her imperturbable judge, pale and downcast, answering the older woman's questions in a low, unsteady voice.
Presently Mrs. Lanier had an ally in her daughter Cynthia, a cool, casual blond girl, who looked as if she could be beautiful if she liked, but didn't think it worth trying. Cynthia didn't ask questions. That, too, she seemed to think not worth trying. She simply began conversations which died at once, because Emily could take no share in them.
There was really no malice in Cynthia—only a measureless indifference to other people and their unimportant feelings. When she discovered that Emily had never set foot in Paris, had never been to the opera or to a race, and bought her clothes in department stores, she saw that poor Denis's wife was hopeless, and simply stopped talking.
By this time Emily quite agreed with her. The window was open, and Mrs. Lanier had asked her daughter to shut off "that horrible heat." In a temperature that caused Emily to shiver in misery, those two superior creatures sat in calm comfort.
Very well—if they could endure the cold, in their low-cut frocks, then Emily, in a cloth dress, could also endure it, and would. She would endure their little stinging, icy words, too—every one of them.
In desperation she made an effort to imitate Cynthia's cool and casual air. A pitiable failure! There was precious little coolness in her strained smile, her faltering words. The last trace of poise had slipped from her. She no longer tried to hold her own, but simply to endure.
"They'll tell Denis," she thought, over and over again. "Nothing could really make him change toward me; but oh, this will hurt him so! If only they had waited! Oh, if only they had waited until—until I was a little older and—and had more poise!"
A waiter came in to lay the table, and Mrs. Lanier ordered a dinner of all the things that Emily most heartily disliked—such a cold, flat sort of dinner!
"Cecil should be here by now," observed Mrs. Lanier, with a glance at the clock. "He promised to make a particular effort to come, on Denis's account. Poor Cecil!"
Emily wondered in what way she had injured Cecil, that he should be sighed over in this fashion.
It was now after eight o'clock, but Mrs. Lanier decided to wait for the poor boy until half past eight; so there they sat, in the icy room, and all of them silent now. Cynthia had given up, Mrs. Lanier had asked all the questions in her mind, and certainly Emily was not inclined to introduce any topic on her own account. She was stiff with cold, and she fancied her miserable heart was numbed, too. She didn't care very much about anything.
"HELLO, people!" cried a jolly voice.
There in the doorway stood a most engaging young fellow—a real human being, thought Emily, a creature warm and happy, and able to smile. Smile he did, and directly at Emily.
"Cecil!" said Mrs. Lanier. "Denis's wife, you know."
He went over to her gladly, and took her cold little hand in a cordial grasp.
"Clever of Denis!" he observed. "Very!"
She looked up at him, half incredulous, but in his face there was no mockery, no disdain—nothing but a very frank approbation. She knew that he thought her pretty. In the bright glow of his admiration her prettiness seemed suddenly to come to life again, her frozen heart beat faster, and color rose in her cheeks. A friend had come!
What is more, Cecil was a powerful friend. He had a cheerful, domineering sort of way with his mother and sister, and it was obvious that they idolized him. He said that Emily was chilly, and that the window was to be closed and the heat turned on. They suffered terribly, but did not complain. He consulted Emily about the proposed menu. He insisted upon knowing what she really liked, and saw that she got it. He made her talk and made her laugh, because he was so persistently cheerful and silly, and his mother and sister looked on with an air of patient indulgence.
Back came all her native gayety. She didn't fear or dislike these frigid women any more. She wasn't a meek, scared, silly little object now; she was the girl Denis loved, and they would have to love her, too. She felt sure of herself, radiant, happy, no longer alien and oppressed; and beyond all measure grateful to her new friend, her brother Cecil.
NOTHING had been said by any of the Laniers about seeing her again, and Emily had consulted her book on etiquette in vain for a hint. She was the more disturbed by this because she had had a letter from Denis—a solemn, miserable letter, filled with careful descriptions of the scenery and the weather. Through it all, in every line, she could read his longing for her and his great anxiety about her. Such a dear, stupid letter—honest and serious and manly, like Denis himself. He knew well enough how to love, but nothing at all about making love.
He hadn't heard yet of his family's arrival in New York, and, thought Emily, he was not going to get the news from them first. Very likely his mother would write to him by the same mail, but he would surely read Emily's letter first, and he should have her account of the meeting.
Just what ought she to tell him? She would say, of course, that she had dined with his people.
"And then shall I say I'm going to call on them? Or should I invite them here to dinner?" she thought. "Or ought I just to wait?"
She was in her room, struggling with this problem, when Mr. Cecil Lanier was announced. She hastened down into the lounge, very much pleased. Here was something else to tell Denis. There was at least one member of his family that she could praise with candor.
She welcomed Cecil with frank pleasure, and he, on his part, seemed so remarkably glad to see her again, so very friendly, that a new and daring idea sprang up in her mind. It might be more diplomatic and more polite to wait a little, however. In spite of his jolly, friendly manner, there was something rather impressive about Cecil. He wasn't to be treated too casually.
He was really younger than Denis, but he seemed older, not only because his face was a little worn, and his smiling eyes a little tired, but because of his affable worldliness. Denis, in his earnestness, his straightforward simplicity, had sometimes seemed quite boyish to Emily, but there was no trace of boyishness in Cecil. He was a charming fellow, handsome, courteous, and amusing, and he knew it. Emily had mighty little worldly wisdom, but she did not lack intuition, and she thought—and rightly—that Cecil would be extraordinarily kind and obliging to any one he liked, and by no means so to those he did not like; so she decided to make him like her.
It was not difficult. He had already been attracted to her the evening before, and he was delighted with her this afternoon. The time fairly flew. They had tea together at five o'clock; and after what seemed only a few minutes, it was seven.
"Let's go out somewhere and have dinner," said he.
"Oh!" said Emily. "I'd like to, but—aren't there other things you have to do?"
She was thinking of his mother.
"I never have anything to do," Cecil assured her cheerfully. "That's the great advantage of being hopelessly incompetent. I can't do anything, you know."
"I don't believe that. I'm sure you could do almost anything, if you tried," said Emily.
She hadn't meant to say it in quite that tone, or with quite that admiring glance, and she grew a little red as he returned the glance with interest.
"I'm never going to try," said he. "Once you start, people begin to expect things of you." He paused. "But if there's anything you'd like done, Emily—"
She had no more poise left then than you could put into a thimble. She had a favor to ask of Cecil, and she felt sure he would grant it. She was determined to ask it, too, and saw no reason why she should not, and yet—and yet, in spite of his kindliness, Cecil made her uneasy and confused.
"I just thought," she began, "that if you were going to write to Denis—"
"Never wrote to him in my life," said Cecil; "but look here, Emily!"
She did not look there, but down at her clasped hands. After a glance around the empty tea room, Cecil bent forward and took one of these hands.
"Look here!" he said again. "Do you mean—you poor little kid!—do you mean there's something you don't like to tell him yourself? Denis is such a confoundedly high-minded—"
"Oh, no!" cried Emily, shocked. "Mercy, no! I only thought—if you were going to write—" Well, she had to finish it now. "I thought maybe you'd tell him that you'd met me, and that you—you didn't think I was so horrible."
Cecil looked at her for a moment with a singular expression.
"I see!" he said, with a faint smile. "I don't think you're exactly horrible, Emily; but still, I don't think I'd better write and tell old Denis so."
"Why?"
"Well, you see—"
Emily, looking at him, did see, in a vague, uneasy fashion. She did not care to ask Cecil for any explanation. Suddenly she didn't want to talk to him any more. She made all sorts of polite excuses, which he accepted very good-humoredly, and they parted in the most friendly way; but in her heart, Emily never wanted to see him again.
She cried herself to sleep that night, longing for her dear, honest, comprehensible Denis, and wishing she need see nobody else but Denis all the rest of her life.
WHEN Cecil came again the next afternoon, she could think of no good reason for refusing to see him. After all, what had she against him? Nothing at all—nothing real. He hadn't said a word that she could resent. It was only—well, she didn't know what—something in his smile, in his tired eyes.
"It's my own fault," she decided. "I know he'd be all right, if I weren't so—silly. If I had more poise—"
This afternoon she had an unusual amount of poise, for she had had a letter from Denis that made her happy. She was Denis's wife, and she really didn't care a snap of her fingers about any one else on earth.
She found Cecil charming that day.
"Let's go out somewhere," he suggested. "It would do me no end of good—that is, if you'll be jolly and a little bit kind to me. I'm not happy to-day, Emily."
She believed that. She fancied that perhaps he was never very happy, and she felt sorry for him. She was still more sorry when she saw how quickly he responded to her own cheerful mood.
It cannot be denied that this very superficiality of his made him a most engaging companion. They took a taxi up to the Botanical Gardens, went into the hemlock forest there, and wandered about for two hours, breaking the enchanted stillness with their careless, happy talk, without a moment's constraint or weariness. Away from hotels and family conventions, Cecil was a very different fellow. His polite sophistication vanished, and with it his misleading pretense of being a cheerful idiot. He wasn't that. He was clever, adroit, and by no means apathetic.
As the sun was beginning to sink, they strolled out of the forest and across the hilltop and the smooth meadows, past the greenhouses, to the entrance. It was growing chilly, and they were tired and furiously hungry.
"We'll have tea now," said Cecil. "Please don't always object, Emily!"
So they took another taxi down town, to a sedate little tea room that Emily suggested, and after tea he left her at her hotel.
"Thank you, Emily," he said simply. "I've never had a better day."
Emily, too, was happy. She wanted to rush upstairs and write all about it to Denis. He was always pleased when she spent her time out of doors, and he looked upon walking as a solemn duty. He said that she didn't walk nearly enough—that no American girls did.
"Mrs. Lanier!" said the desk clerk, as she stopped for her key.
With a cordial smile, he handed her a note. She recognized the handwriting as her mother-in-law's, and took the envelope with no great pleasure. Nor was she in a hurry to open it. She took off her dusty shoes and her street suit, put on slippers and a mandarin coat, let down her glittering flood of hair, and only then, when she was lying in comfort on the bed, did she open the thing.
My dear Emily:
I should be very pleased if you would dine with us this evening at half past seven.
Most sincerely yours, Maude Lanier.
"But that's the old note!" she cried.
Jumping up, she looked in the desk to see if the other was missing. There it was, and, taking it out, she compared the two. Except for the date, they were exactly alike, word for word. That made her laugh, and laughter gave her courage.
"I shan't go!" she thought. "I'm tired, and I don't want to go! I don't have to rush off every time I'm sent for!"
She reached out for the telephone at the bedside and, with admirable poise, asked for and obtained the hotel where the elder Mrs. Lanier was living. It seemed somehow an audacious, almost an arrogant thing, to telephone to that majestic creature while lying in bed with her hair down. And to refuse her invitation! It was an adventure—it was thrilling!
But when Mrs. Lanier's voice came to her over the wire, all Emily's exultation fled.
"You can't come?" said Denis's mother. "That's most unfortunate!"
There was more than chilly indifference in her tone. There was actual hostility, and something very like a threat.
"You see," Emily explained, "I'm awfully tired, and—"
"If you will be at home, we shall call after dinner," said Mrs. Lanier. "Will you be alone?"
"Yes, of course," Emily answered, with as much cordiality as she could manage.
After she had hung up the receiver, the odd intonation of that word "alone" still sounded in her ears. Wasn't she always alone? Ever since Denis had gone she had had no visitor, except one of the girls from the office where she had formerly been employed. She had seen no one.
Not that she cared for that. This new life, this new dignity, the delights of buying new books to read and new clothes to wear, of eating in the restaurant downstairs, of going to a matinée now and then, and, above all, of writing immense letters to Denis every evening, had filled her time in the most satisfactory fashion.
"Who did she imagine would be here?" she thought, puzzled. "Some of my awful friends that she couldn't bear to see? I just wish Nina would drop in again this evening!"
That wasn't likely, however. In all probability she would have to entertain her difficult guests alone, and, as it couldn't be avoided, she resolved to make the best of it. Her sitting room was far inferior to theirs, but it was bright with flowers, books and magazines lay about on the table, and it was warm!
"I'll see if I can't make them thaw out," she decided. "Denis would be so pleased!"
NO, the warm, bright room couldn't thaw them. On the contrary, Mrs. Lanier seemed to bring in her own frigid atmosphere. She entered, followed dutifully by her daughter and her son, and, without so much as a smile, bade Emily good evening.
"It's so nice of you to come to see me!" said Emily. "Isn't this a cozy little room?"
"It seems to me quite unbearably hot. However—"
A chill silence fell. Cecil broke it by asking if he might smoke a cigarette. Emily was about to say "Please do," when Mrs. Lanier interposed:
"Pray don't, Cecil—not in this close room!"
With a trace of sulkiness, Emily got up and opened a window. A gust of cold air blew into her face, stirring her bright hair. For an instant she looked down into the street below—the hurrying taxicabs, the hurrying people, all bent on their own concerns, all going somewhere. If she were only out there with Denis!
"I think," said Mrs. Lanier, "that you had better come to live at my hotel, Emily."
"Oh, thanks!" said Emily, alarmed. "But I'm very comfortable here. Anyhow, I couldn't afford it."
"I am willing to defray all your expenses myself."
"Thank you ever so much! But—"
"I think it advisable," said Mrs. Lanier.
"Advisable?" Emily repeated, a little puzzled. "I don't—"
"You ought not to be here alone. You should be with your husband's family. I'm sure Denis would agree with me."
"He picked out this place himself. He said—"
"In the circumstances, Denis would agree with me."
"In what circumstances?" Emily demanded, beginning to grow angry.
"We called yesterday afternoon, and the clerk informed us that you had gone out with a young man. I really don't think Denis would—"
That was too much!
"Upon my word!" cried Emily. "Didn't you know—"
"I say!" interrupted Cecil, in haste. "Not our affair, is it? I mean—hardly the thing, is it, to bother Emily like this? I mean to say—"
His pleasant, well bred voice trailed off into silence, and Emily, after one amazed glance at his face, was silent too.
So he hadn't told them, and his eyes implored her not to tell! She sat very still. All the heat of anger had died in her, leaving only bitterness and scorn. She could not endure to look at any of them—not at Cecil, with his contemptible faith in her good nature, not at the hostile and suspicious Mrs. Lanier, not at the utterly indifferent Cynthia.
"I strongly advise you to come to us," said Mrs. Lanier.
"No," replied Emily quietly. "I'm going to stay here."
Mrs. Lanier rose.
"Then I shall feel it my duty to write to Denis," she said, "and explain this unfortunate situation to him. I wish him to know that I have done my best."
"By all means write to him," said Emily, as calmly as she could.
"Come!" said Mrs. Lanier to her children, in a freezing tone.
After ceremonious farewells they all left, Cecil last. He turned in the doorway, but Emily was not looking at him. She was already absorbed in the letter she was going to write to Denis.
As soon as the door closed after them, she sat down at the desk, to put down on paper all her burning indignation and resentment. She wrote seven pages at lightning speed. Then she began to read over what she had written, and suddenly she broke into tears.
"No, I can't!" she sobbed. "Poor Denis! They're his own people. I can't say all that to him. Oh, poor Denis!"
So in the end, after her fit of weeping had subsided, she wrote another letter—a cheerful, airy little letter. Part of it was:
Your mother seems to think I'm a flighty young thing. She wants me to come and live in the hotel with her—so that she can keep an eye on me, I suppose; but I'm going to stay here, in the place you and I picked out together. I don't imagine you'll be much worried by any tales of my awfulness, will you, Denny?
And then, moved by an honest and generous impulse to make her Denis happy, she added:
The trouble is that your mother doesn't quite understand my barbarous American ways yet. Perhaps I don't understand her very well, either; but we shall in time, I'm sure, Denny. Don't worry about it!
She went to bed happier after that. As for her husband being in the least troubled by any tales of her going out with young men, that was simply absurd. He trusted her just as she trusted him.
EMILY was not surprised at receiving a visit from Cecil the next day, and not at all displeased. She wanted to see him—once more.
He was waiting for her, and came toward her as she came out of the lift. It was a relief that he did not smile. He was as grave as she was.
"Emily!" he said. "I'm sorry!"
"I am, too, Cecil."
"I can't expect you to understand," he went on. "I shouldn't like you so well if you could understand that sort of thing. No use trying to explain; but I had to come and thank you for being so decent to me. Besides, I wanted to tell you that I would set the thing right—tell them I was the man, you know—before I go away."
"When are you going?" she asked coldly.
"There's a ship sailing on Saturday. I'll try to get a passage on her. Anyhow, I'll go as soon as I can, Emily, so that I can clear up this thing."
"You mean that you have to run away because you came to see me?" she cried, with a sort of sorrowful scorn.
"Yes," he answered. "You see, Emily, I haven't a penny of my own—nothing but an allowance from mother. She's a bit—difficult, at times. If she hears that I've come to see you, she'll call it disloyal, d'you see? Fact! She'll make it too hot for me, so I'd better run home and—"
"Oh, don't go on!" said Emily.
It was intolerable to hear him so frankly, almost carelessly, admitting his shameful humiliation; and a little while ago she had thought him a fine and gallant figure, so insouciant, so independent!
"No!" she went on headlong. "Don't tell your mother! I don't care, no, not one little bit, what any one thinks! Denis would—"
She stopped, struggling with a sob that rose in her throat.
"It simply doesn't matter," she added more calmly. "You needn't tell any one. You needn't—run away; only please don't talk about it any more."
He stood before her, not shamefaced, but simply unhappy.
"I'm sorry, Emily!" he said again.
And so was she—terribly sorry, remembering what an endearing companion he had been, how considerate, how kindly. She was still grateful for those poor little kindnesses. She saw much that was good in Cecil, no malice, no harshness, only that pitiable lack of manly pride and honor, that degradation of which he was not even aware.
With a smile not very steady, she held out her hand.
"Never mind, Cecil!" she said. "It's all over now, and forgotten. Let's just say good-by and—"
"Does it have to be good-by, Emily?" he asked wistfully. "Look here! Suppose I tell mother, and simply face the row? Suppose I write and explain to old Denis? Then why couldn't you and I go on being friends?"
She shook her head.
"Nothing has to be explained to Denis," she said. "I'll just tell him, if he asks me; and—I'm sorry, Cecil, but it does have to be good-by. I wouldn't make any trouble in the family for anything in the world!"
He submitted to her decision, as he was inclined to submit to anything definite, and off he went, with one last miserable look. Emily watched him with misty eyes.
"Poor Cecil!" she thought. "Poor fellow! But how terribly his mother must hate me, if it's disloyal for him even to come to see me!"
Pain and dismay seized her at that thought. Ill will was a new thing in her life, something which she had never felt in her own heart or in the air about her. A most potent and subtle poison!
She waited for a letter from Denis with a new feeling of resentment. He ought to have written at once, to assure her that he only laughed at other people's tales—or, better still, that he was angry. Much better if he would be angry. Emily found herself hoping for that with a bitter delight that half frightened her. She wanted that! She wanted her complete triumph, wanted to stand beside Denis while he humbled her enemies. It was an ignoble hope, she knew, and yet it was beyond measure precious to her.
On the third day his letter came, and she tore it open eagerly. It was unusually brief:
My dear Emily:
I think you had better go to mother's hotel until I come back. It seems advisable to me for several reasons. Only time for these few lines, but I'll write more fully later. Take care of yourself.
Yours, Denis.
That was how he vindicated her! So he believed what other people told him! He wanted her to go where his mother could watch her! This was his faith, his pride, his love! This was her triumph!
"I'LL give him just one more day," Emily declared in a tremulous voice. "Then I'll go home!"
She knew, even while she spoke, the pitiable folly of her words. One more day, when she had long ago given Denis all the days she ever could live! And to talk of going home, when she had no home in all the wide world!
Her father's house wasn't her home now. If she went there, she would be a visitor, welcomed and beloved, but always a visitor. She didn't belong there any more. The words of the old proverb came into her mind—"Home is where the heart is." Once upon a time she had thought that a fanciful idea, but now she knew it to be true; and her heart, alas, was wandering homeless.
She had written Denis a very prompt reply to his letter. She had told him that his people had treated her shamefully, that she was done with them, and that he must take his choice. "Either them or me," she had said. "Please let me know when you have made up your mind."
She hadn't thought that he would take so long about making up his mind, or that her just anger would prove so feeble a flame. It was anger that had warmed and strengthened her, anger that was her justification; and it was flickering dimly now, leaving her defenseless against the cold wind of doubt and bitter regret.
If only she had had patience, if only she had waited until Denis came back! They could have talked it over together; but instead of that, she had forced upon him a decision that would inevitably cause him untold pain.
It was cruel! He couldn't choose between her and his venerated people; and he couldn't compromise—he was too downright for that. He would take what she said seriously. Well, suppose he didn't choose her?
She thought that if Denis never came back to her, or if he came back changed, she could not bear to live.
It was half past five—time to put on her hat and go out to meet Nina at the little table d'hôte where they were to have dinner together. She slipped her arms into her fur coat—the coat Denis had bought for her—and pulled on a little hat without troubling to look in the mirror. Who cared how she looked, anyhow? A whole week, and he hadn't written. Seven days, utterly shut off from him!
"Perhaps there'll be a letter for me downstairs," she thought, knowing very well that if there had been, it would have been sent up to her.
There was no letter, but there was Denis himself. At first she couldn't possibly believe it. She saw some one come through the revolving door—some one like Denis, only it couldn't be he. He was in New Orleans, and very busy there. The man she saw was very much like Denis—the same sort of well knit, stalwart figure, the same sort of dark, serious face.
"It's not you, is it?" she asked in a queer little voice.
"Yes," said he.
His voice gave her no clew, nor did his keen, quiet face. She wasn't going to be silly. If he could be as cool as this, then so could she.
"I was just going out to dinner with Nina Holley," she told him.
"I see!" said Denis.
He stood aside for her to go out of the door. Then he followed her out, and they walked down the street side by side, turned a corner, and went down another street, without a single word. This was by no means what Emily wanted.
"Would you like to come with me?" she asked, with punctilious politeness.
"I am coming with you," replied Denis.
Again they went on in silence, as long as Emily could endure it.
"Haven't you anything to say?" she cried at last. "Haven't—"
"I've a good deal to say," he interrupted; "but not here."
That was too much for Emily. They were at a crisis in their lives. She was waiting in desperate anxiety for what he would say, and he couldn't speak, because they were in the street, and some one might possibly hear! He couldn't for an instant forget his stiff Lanier propriety.
"You're angry," she said. "I can see that. Well, it's no use. I said you'd have to choose, and I meant it. There's not a bit of use in your coming to quarrel with me. If you're disgusted with me, go back to your—"
"Look here!" said Denis. "Are you trying to be funny?"
Emily was very much taken aback at this question.
"Funny?" she repeated.
His hand closed suddenly on her arm.
"Look here, old girl!" he said. "I'm—you'll have to make allowances, you know. It's been a bit hard. I dare say it doesn't seem much of a job to you, but after all, you know, they're my own people, and it's been a bit hard."
Emily stopped short in the street.
"Denis!" she cried. "What do you mean?"
"I went to see mother, but they were all out. I left a note. I think I made it pretty clear."
"Oh, Denis! Denis! You mean you chose me?"
"Don't do that!" he said in alarm, pulling out a great handkerchief and hastily dabbing at Emily's eyes. "You are a silly kid, and no mistake! Of course it's you, always. I thought you knew that well enough."
"I can't possibly stop crying," said Emily. "You'd better get a taxi."
He did so. Once they were in the cab, Denis Lanier took his wife in his arms and kissed her in his own earnest and resolute fashion.
"But how could you come, Denis?"
"How could I not come? It seemed to me I was rather badly needed. Dont't cry, dear girl, please! I'm going back to-morrow, and I'll take you with me. I'll not leave you again. But I say, Emily, exactly what was there in my letter that upset you so? I couldn't—"
"You wanted me to go to your mother's hotel!"
"I know; but that wasn't so bad, was it? She wanted you to come, and I thought that if you did, you know—if she saw more of you, there'd be—well, more harmony."
He was smiling down at her, as her head lay on his shoulder, but in his eyes there was a pain that he could not hide or stifle. She sat up suddenly.
"There will be, Denis!" she said vehemently. "There will be harmony, my dear, darling old Denis! I've been selfish and horrible!" He tried to stop her, but she would go on. "I knew all the time that I was. Oh, Denis, forgive me, and let me have another chance! Let's go now to your mother, and—"
"Not much!" said Denis. "Not after the note I left!"
"It's early. Perhaps she hasn't come home yet. Oh, do tell the man to hurry! Denis, let me have my chance!"
THERE Denis sat, as much at home in that icy room as a frog in water. To be sure, he had offered to close the window, but Emily had declined, preferring to wear her fur coat. His very voice had changed. All the warmth had gone out of it, and his face wore a look she had not seen before—a bored and disdainful look.
Yet she knew that he was really happy. All the talk about old friends and old days, from which she was so entirely shut out, interested and pleased him. She knew that he thought Cecil amusing and Cynthia a beautiful and distinguished girl, and that he profoundly admired his mother's frosty calm. He was among his own people, and immeasurably glad to be there.
And Emily herself was quite happy, quite content to sit in silence. She had two supreme consolations. One was the look in Denis's eyes each time he turned toward her, and that was often. He wasn't good at expressing himself in words, but his glance was eloquent enough, and it spoke only to her. His own people were entirely shut out from their secret happiness. They might ignore her if they liked; she didn't care in the least. They were the real outsiders.
And the other compensation was a bit of paper tucked inside her blouse—Denis's note to his mother, which Mrs. Lanier was never to see. Emily could well afford to be generous, for her triumph was complete and magnificent.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.