Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“ All those young emotions are games; Maurice was playing at life. He needed reality, and he has lived into it with you. I saw him cry with despair when he thought he had lost you; I saw his rapture when I told him he could marry you. I can guess what happened afterwards. He was afraid of Angela—and sorry for her, and he wrote her this lie. Yes, he was a liar and a coward—what of it? You have made him over. He is a different man. Say that he still is weak as water—what of it? He adores you; I know it—and you loved him—once. You gain nothing by leaving him, and he loses everything—everything. ”

“ Some barrier was gone; the barrier of her happiness, perhaps. Felicia knew that the little moment suddenly trembled for her with that sense of nearness; in another she felt that her sadness would be a stronger barrier.
She looked up from her sewing.
“You know what I feel about papa and Lady Angela. I feel it foolishly perhaps.”
“Apart from that, it’s a pain, I know, but one can adjust oneself to pain.”
“Apart from that, am I happy? What do you mean by happiness?”
“Are you satisfied? Is your life growing? Is it glad?” ”

“ She had never before, Geoffrey realized, shown him at once her malice and her kindness. Her smile, at last, was like the smiles at Maurice. He had the sense of sunny playfulness—reminiscent of childhood, and the big words they bandied were delightfully rebounding, gaily coloured balls.
“I must seem almost impertinent, I am afraid,” Felicia went on, “but I have to be—to keep up my courage. I never gave tea to a great man before. I suppose that you are a great man—for I can’t say that my littleness has any means of knowing. Impudence is the privilege of littleness, you see.” ”

“ Had Maurice returned? Had he in a frenzy of anger or despair showed Geoffrey her letter? Had Geoffrey come to claim her on the strength of her own avowal?—come to claim her?—to take her away?
She had no time to analyze the terror of such surmises—what they implied of disillusion in him—or to look at the rapture that ran a dreadful radiance through terror and disillusion. That there should be rapture was perhaps the terror’s root. She heard him in the hall ridding himself of the dripping umbrella and waterproof. Why, after all, call it disillusion? ”

“ But Geoffrey did not let it pass. “What do you mean by life?” he asked.
Angela still seemed to muse. “Oh, in this instance, I don’t mean life in its sense of expansion through self-sacrifice, of self-achievement through renunciation, but in the happy, finite sense, the illusion through which we must rise to reality, the rose and sunlight sense, the bread-and-butter sense, in fact,” she added, raising her eyes to Felicia and smiling.
“Why not pâté de foie gras sandwiches?” asked Felicia; “they are even happier. Do have one.” ”

“ It’s a choice between taking up your old life—and, I am sure of it, Felicia, making a tremendously good thing out of it—or living the new life I described to you—the life of the flower in the vase on the mantelpiece—a life of constant danger. For you—I know your strength; but could it keep me from you, year in and year out, do you suppose, if there were no barriers between us, no actual barriers of everyday life and everyday obligations? For myself—I would die for you, as you know; but to live without you—seeing you drifting—alone—in a sadness worse than any suffering—? ”

“ After all, it was not pity that she wanted. She wanted to be lifted from the nightmare of abasement; to feel herself looking down once more; to be the consoler, the binder of wounds—not the suppliant; not the recipient of an indifferent dole. She approached Felicia, putting out her hand to her.
“And you know—dear—dear—child, how I pity you. Ah, let this pity, this mutual agony unite us, Felicia—you who have lost only an illusion, I who have lost a reality. Can we not see each other more clearly now? Can we not understand—and kiss each other—like sisters?” ”

“ There was almost the sob of a reproach in his voice as he leaned his cheek to hers for comfort. The echo—as of an alien knock at the doors of her happiness, went through the peace, the radiance within. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“Why, Maurice!—calm! It’s only that loving you—having you to love me is so great, so wonderful, that even yet I can only feel the thankfulness—the beauty. Don’t you know that when you are gone my life will be only a waiting?” The tremor of pain in her, her trust in him, roused again a flare of his manliness. ”

“ Lady Angela has showed me the letter you wrote to her before we were married. You did not even marry me through generous pity; Geoffrey forced you to it. You betrayed him to her; you betrayed me to her. You gave me your sham in return for my reality. Do not tell me that you loved me then, and now. That is the worst of it. Such love is a sham. I despise you. I see only falseness and cowardice in you. And through all this ruin I see Geoffrey as he is—and I see myself. I see now that I love him. You know that your honour—a strange word to write to you—is safe between our hands ”

“ Uncle Cuthbert, rosy, good-tempered, loud-laughing, had succumbed to his brother’s vehemence, and watched him with an air of cheerful immovability. Gloom was upon Felicia and beneath it that heave of anger, ready to bubble up.
Maurice’s eyes meeting hers once or twice, was the one ray of light, strong, gay, sustaining. He was, indeed he was with her, however much against her all the rest.
“It’s an age of sham, of conformity,” Mr. Austin announced. “There seem no fighters left. The pseudo-believers have it all their own way, since apparently there is no genuine belief to oppose them. ”

“ Her interjections were like swift knives, cutting at his careful deliberateness. “What do you mean?”
“You thought fit, moved by this influence that I deplore—quite apart from its open antagonism to my claims on you—to scoff and jeer at my essay. It would have been enough to have expressed your dislike to me alone.” His eyes now turned to her.
She gazed at him with an almost stupid astonishment. Suddenly she rose. As if some hateful revelation had torn stupefaction from her,—“That horrible woman!” she cried.
“It was your husband who told me,” said Mr. Merrick quickly. ”

“ It was altogether like an Embarquement pour Cythère, Maurice thought, with the one little corner of his mind that could still see enhancing similes. They were setting sail in the golden haze—what need to ask where bound—to something happy it must be. And, flushed like a wild-rose from his kiss, Felicia felt, too, that swift sailing away into a sunny mist, felt, like the soft speeding through shining waves, relief at the leaving of hostile shores, delightful ease, the soothing of the ruffled frightened heart, afraid of life and of its own loneliness. Life, then, was good, since he loved her. ”

“ Geoffrey was thinking of Felicia, of Maurice, holding his thoughts steadily from a dangerous thinking of himself; he needed to hold them steadily. He was seeing Maurice, his Maurice—how near his heart he only now clearly saw when at once that heart seemed to spurn him, with a wicked joy in his baseness, and then to catch him back, lamenting—seeing the boy, loving, impulsive, full of fears and intrepidities, needing always the strong arm to fall back on; the man, so boyish still, so weak, so generous; the sad friend of the other night, who, whatever his falsity, had spoken truth ”

“ Maurice flung him the truth scornfully.
“Yet you speak of lies!”
“I know my friend, and honour him, as you don’t seem to know or honour your daughter.”
“I know human nature as you don’t seem to know it. It’s a dangerous intimacy. I insist on my right to protect my daughter.”
“You insult her by claiming such a right. Don’t speak to me of this again.” Maurice, as he said it, grew suddenly white with a new thought. “And never dare,” he added, turning eyes that quelled even Mr. Merrick’s fully-armed championship, “never dare tell Felicia that you have discussed her with that woman.” ”

“ Maurice was feeling no reaction to weakness after his strength. The scene was like a distant memory, and that strange shot that had hurt, had pierced him with such a pang—not of suspicion, not of foreboding, but of wonder, deep, sad wonder.
He felt a sort of languor after pain, and, as they walked, went on dreamily: “Such a queer evening, Geoffrey, horrible!—yet no, splendid too. Facing things is splendid isn’t it? I want to tell you something, Geoffrey—to confess something—I want you to know. That winter—when I thought I could not marry Felicia, I went pretty far with Angela. ”

“ She ushered him into the little hall. It was panelled in light wood, and its faint woodland fragrance made him think of pagan incense in some primitive temple. There was a leaping fire in the sitting-room, and the white austerity trembled with rose and gold; branches of larch in tall bronze vases glowed like a delicate mist of light. The freshness, the fragrance, the simplicity, all spoke of Felicia. She rang for tea, and, while she filled a bowl with her white roses, could not repress that inner urgency.
“It is long since I saw any of you. How are Lady Angela—Mr. Wynne?” ”

“ The facing of a long, blank patience was almost death-like, almost like the shutting of the eyes, a yielding of oneself to the earth, with a faith in final resurrection—where?—when?—who knew?—for all light in a shrouded present. Felicia shook off the simile, with a fear that Maurice’s plaintiveness was infecting her. He had more right to it—burdened fighter. Her love a burden?—again her heart dropped. She bent her face to the roses. Their sweetness went through her like a smile. ”

“ In this environment that spoke only of Felicia, the thought of Angela was far away. When it drew near he turned from it with impatience—almost with resentment.
In Felicia’s garden the trees showed a frail web of green against the sky. A slender almond tree, in bloom, looked to Maurice like a little angel at the gates of Paradise. Life had exquisite, atoning moments; the joy of this one in its poignancy seized his throat in a choking sob so that he could scarcely breathe, and there was pain in the rapture. ”

“ There was an added fear in the thought that a new attitude in Angela might have made the refuge inaccessible.
Angela must feel herself neglected, though neglected only for a flirtation. Such a flirtation would leave their half-friendly, half-sentimental intimacy untouched, leave the path to the refuge clear; but did she guess that it was not a flirtation?—see that it was neither so little nor so much? And might she not, her long patience exhausted, marry somebody else? It was a painful thought. Maurice could hardly see himself without that vision of the cushion to flop on. ”

“ Felicia’s ideas of love, despite the severely realistic literature and pessimistic theories that had nourished her youth, were as white, as gracious and as lofty as the shining crescent of the moon that hung in beauty over the pine-woods. She smiled, but with a little fear, analyzing the feminine waiting for a fairy prince, facing the fact that she was really ready to fall in love with the first nice person who presented himself for idealization. He must, of course, be possible; idealization had been impossible with the stupid men she had met at Trensome Hall ”

“ Again her eyes fell before his, but her face remained fixed in its conviction of sincerity.
“How dare you, Angela.”
Still looking down, she went on as steadily as before, her voice anchored with its weight of woe,—how he loved Felicia!—“I dare because I believe that she loves him most. Her love for you and your weakness is maternal by now. I know it, I feel it; I can see it when she looks at you and at him. She loves him as she has never loved you. And I! Oh, Maurice—Maurice—I!” ”

“ Your brother-in-law is an intelligent man, with an altogether out-of-date intelligence, petrified in its funny pride. But what a character! What grotesque vanity! How he must jar upon you and your husband—could I fail to see it? And yet how kind you are to him and his untrained, untutored little girl. You are, I suppose, their only outlook on life.”
Mrs. Merrick saw Austin collapsing into a foolish insignificance, and where she had never before been able to feel him as insignificant was now enabled to see him with Lady Angela’s clearer vision. She saw herself, too, as very kind indeed. ”

“ Felicia, pushing open the garden gate, stepped inside; the gate swung to. She held his hand over it.
“So this is the garden. It is exquisite to leave you here among all these flowers; to think of you loving me and waiting for me in all this serenity.” He smiled, looking quickly from her to the irises, the pansies, the roses. But the smile faded. “Ah! but how can I wait!—how can I bear to leave you!” His pain, his fear, surged up in the words. He hid his face on her shoulder, longing for a strength that would banish them; her trust in his strength hurt him too much to give it ”

“ Felicia saw on her father’s face a mingling of amazement and gratification quickly composed into an over-emphatic dignity.
“I liked him ever so much,” said Felicia; when Geoffrey had taken his departure; “he is so different from what I thought.”
Gratification at the testimony to his daughter’s attractiveness warred in Mr. Merrick with the repudiating dignity. He stood firmly on the latter as he answered—
“I don’t care for the type. He does well enough for you to study”; and gratification rose again as he added: “That’s the worth of our position. We stand apart and let others come to us. ”

“ Did he not, after all, accept dependence and poverty for Felicia’s sake? Yes, it was ugly to think it, and only true on the surface, but if one went below the surface, where indeed in life was any truth to be found? He must face the ugliness of his own situation; and if in it he himself were ugly, it was the situation that had rubbed off on him. When one was in a sooty atmosphere one couldn’t escape smudges. By degrees the deeper truth would come to Angela; she would feel that his greatest love was, had always been, for Felicia; but the realization would come quietly, endurably ”

“ She and Geoffrey had written regularly and a little perfunctorily, letters of pleasant friendliness, making no allusion to depths.
“He hasn’t kept me posted,” said Angela, taking a chair beside Felicia, and leaning forward over her tea-cup, her arm on her knee, in an attitude habitual with her—an attitude at once sibylline and saint-like. “I have seen so little of you, Geoffrey—only heard of you. How are you?”
“All right. And you?”
“Wearing out my scabbard,” she said with a fatigue that made no attempt at lightness. “That is the fate of all of us who dedicate our lives to anything, isn’t it? ”

“ I know what you have wished for her—to keep your rose-bud sheltered, the dew still upon it; so often the ideal of the father when he has seen life in all its dangerous reality. You have succeeded; she is a rose-bud with the dew on it. Dear Mr. Merrick, keep it dewy.” Her smile straight into his eyes was grave, steady. Maître Corbeau was flattered by her words, her look. The vague self-distrust that often fluttered in him, that fear of perhaps lacking what she so delightfully saw in him, was still. He had hardly grasped the significance of her allusions. ”

“ Merrick spent most of his time at his club, watching life from its windows with an ironic eye. At tea-time Maurice would appear, tired yet merry, from the studio; friends came in, the quiet shining hour broke into sparkling facets; but the hours alone with her were personal possessions to Geoffrey, jewels that strung themselves in a rosary through his weeks and months. They talked, or Felicia played to him, declaring that his taste for music grew; they often sat silent, she sewing and he watching her. ”

“ Felicia’s eyes turned on her father, who was standing in isolation and assumed indifference before the fire-place. She felt, in seeing him, that familiar throb of indignant pity. No one could realize more acutely than she the qualities in him that made for unpopularity; but it was his ineffectiveness more than his vanity, his lack of power more than his assumption of it, that made the world fall away from him. Her judgement of her father always passed, with a swift self-condemnation, into a judgement of human unkindness. She brought her eyes back to Angela, her good temper chilled ”

“ Angela’s eyes went over her. Felicia wore her customary blue serge, her lawn collar and black bow. In her place, Angela thought, she would have felt the effectiveness of an unrelieved black dress; a comment followed by a further recognition of Felicia’s indifference to effectiveness that left another little trail of fear. She had slept; well, perhaps. Her eye-lids showed no languor. Her face was white, cold, composed. Hardly fragile. Certainly not tawdry. From this re-adjustment to reality Angela glanced out at the sky. She must grasp at all her strength. She must pray for strength. ”

“ Felicia protested.
“No, no, indeed. Lady Angela doesn’t know me as well as you do—in spite of your nipping reference to five days—and for the simple reason that she doesn’t know herself; that inner blindness blurs all one’s outer vision, you know. I am fond of her, really fond of her—she is, on the whole, a very good sort. But she seldom means what she thinks she means—and that’s so disconcerting. Now you always mean just what you intend to mean.”
The memory of Aunt Kate’s grunt, dimmed already, was effaced by this frank analysis of his relation with Angela. ”

“ Geoffrey is pinned to activity, indeed, but hardly in its noble forms; pinned rather to the practical, the expedient, the continual compromise of political life that tends, I think, to eat away all sense of moral responsibility. Not a good influence for either of your nestlings. I am very frank, Mr. Merrick, but I have known both these men so well, since boyhood. Geoffrey is strong, and Maurice, with all his charm, is weak; the contrast must tell. Geoffrey predominates over Maurice and will, I fear, over your daughter. Already we have found his influence working. Women echo the strongest. ”

“ Felicia Grey came from a little New England town, and after the death of a sternly practical father, a passionately transcendental mother, she seized upon an aunt, colourless and submissive, and came to Europe to see life.
She was highly educated and vastly ignorant. She intended to see life steadily, and to see it whole. The steadiness she certainly attained; she was fearless, eager, full of faith.
Austin Merrick met her at a Paris pension and his essentially irresolute soul was stirred by Miss Grey’s resolute eyes, eyes large and clear, like a boy’s. ”

“ Most terrible of all was the seeing of herself slip and slide from a serene eminence down into a slimy, warring world. The betrayal of Maurice had not been in her ideal of herself; it forcibly abased her to a level of soiling realities—hatreds, jealousies, revenges. With sick revulsion she could imagine herself feebly turning—though bones were broken—feebly crawling up again from the abyss, either by some retractation, or by withholding from Felicia the ultimate humiliations she could inflict upon her. She might evade the cruellest truth ”

“ Angela should not force her to seeming trust when she felt only deepest distrust. Her eyes, in the mirror, met Maurice’s. Before she was conscious of the impulse she found that she had commanded him as a woman commands the man of whose obedience she is assured. At once he understood and answered.
“May I come too?” he asked.
“Do. I am going for a walk.”
This, then, must seem the reality that underlay it all; the struggle of two women over a man. Felicia’s face kept its hardness as she and Maurice went out. ”

“ Aubins and Eisens, he felt that after a period of tumult and turmoil he was once more almost at home in an atmosphere all peace and suavity. A glance at the realities that prowled outside made this inner bower the quieter, and he could but remember that he had only to put out his hand to make it part of his life; had had only to put out his hand; he amended the slip loyally, yet lazily, too, as he leaned with Angela over a portfolio of old prints. Angela was at her best; gentle, unemphatic, and also a little lazy; not in her exalted mood that sometimes fatigued and made him satirical. ”

“ And a great wave of longing rose in Felicia, engulfing her utterly, so that she knew for some moments that seemed eternal nothing but its thunder and its restlessness. She had already seen in herself, in her love for Maurice, this capacity for recklessness, and now a deeper tumult roared in her ears. For this was the man she loved. Through mistakes and misery they had found each other. Why not fall upon his neck and shut her eyes to all that distant world? Why not cry out to him, Take me away? His strength would never lift a finger to tempt her weakness ”

“ Nothing is more maiming to an ideal not yet strong than ridicule; mine, happily, is strong, though I myself am weak.”
Geoffrey looked down at his shoe, turning his foot a little as though to observe the hue of his silk sock. He was silent, placidly silent; but it was now as if his thought had passed away from her and her words, and his abrupt change of the subject when he again spoke, as of a large mind turning from a trivial encounter with a small one, was anything but flattering. “Who is that girl?” he inquired.
Angela’s eyes followed his to Maurice and Felicia. ”