Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“ Palamon, after running here and there, with rather assumed interest, his nose to the ground, came and sat down before them with an air of dignified acquiescence and appreciative contemplation. In the woods the sudden, sad-sweet twitter of a bird seemed to embroider the silence with unconscious pathos.
“O Peter!” said Hilda suddenly, on a note as impulsive and as inevitable as the bird’s. He looked at her and put his arms around her, saying nothing.
“Oh!” said Hilda, “I cannot help it. I love you too much, dear Peter. Everything else may have been wrong, but it is right to love you.” ”

“ There was something irritating in Allan Hope’s absolute fitness for the rôle, emphasizing, as it did, Peter’s own unfitness, his forty years, and his desultory life.
Active energy, the go-ahead perseverance that knows no doubts, the honest and loyal convictions which were all arranged for him from his cradle, and which he would bequeath to his children unaltered, all things that make for order and well-being, looked at one from Lord Allan’s clear, light eyes. Odd suddenly felt himself to be an uncertain cumberer of the earth; failure personified beside the other’s air of inevitable success. ”

“ The thought of poor mamma’s empty life soon decided me. I remember she had asked one day for John Addington Symonds’s last book, and Katherine and I looked at one another, knowing that it could not be bought. I realized then, that at all events I could make enough to keep mamma in books and Katherine in gloves. You can’t think how nasty, how egotistic my vulgar hesitation seemed to me. My life so full, so happy, and theirs on the verge of ruin. There is something very selfish about art, you know; it shuts one off so much from real life, makes one so indifferent to scrapings and pinchings. ”

“ There was distinction in her coiffure—the thick deeply rippled hair parted on one side, and coiled smoothly from crown to neck; and Peter recognized in her dress a personal taste as distinctive—the long unbroken lines of her nasturtium velvet gown were untinged by any hint of so-called artistic dowdiness, and yet the dress wrinkled about her waist as she moved with a daring elegance far removed from the moulded conventionality of the other women’s bodices. This glowing gown was cut off the shoulders; Katherine’s shoulders were beautiful, and they were triumphantly displayed. ”

“ Archinard’s presence was damping, and even Katherine’s smile was like a flower seen through rain. The little clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter.
“Almost six!” exclaimed Katherine; “we must have tea.”
“Yes, we may sacrifice ourselves, but we must not sacrifice Mr. Odd,” said Mrs. Archinard with distinct fretfulness. Taylor answered the bell, and Peter, with a quickness of combination that surprised himself, surmised that Hilda was out alone. Had she become emancipated? Bohemian? His melancholy grew stronger. ”

“ The flush of misery that her father’s cool suppositions on Katherine’s conduct had seemed to strike into her face, only died slowly. She had to turn from that shame resolutely, contemplation would only deepen its helplessness. She looked at the river, and thought of the time when she had stood beside it with Odd and recited Chaucer to him. She thought of the humorous droop of his eyelids, the kind, comprehensive clasp of his hand on hers; the look of the hand too, long, brown, delicate, the finger-tips too dainty for a man, and the dark green seal on his finger. ”

“ Katherine continued, still speaking with the same steady quiet voice, still looking into the fire. “In the past her art has absorbed and protected her, and her future is assured. She will marry a good husband.” A flash as of Hilda’s beauty crossed the growing definiteness of Peter’s new thought. That old undoing, that mirage of beauty; he put it aside with some self-disgust, feeling, as he did so, a queer sense of impersonality as though putting away himself as he put away his weakness. He seemed to contemplate himself from an outside aloofness of observation. ”

“ Katherine clenched her hand on the mantelpiece. She was not given to vehemence of demonstration; the little gesture showed a concentration of bitter rebellion. Odd, standing beside her, put his own hand over hers; patted it soothingly.
“It’s rather hard on me, you know, a slur on my friendship, that you should take a merely conventional obligation so to heart.”
Katherine now looked down into the fire.
“Take it to heart? What else have I had on my heart for years and years? It is a mere variation on the same theme, a little more poignantly painful than usual, that is all! What a life to lead. ”

“ Odd felt himself justly, but rather severely, reproved; yet the gentle candor of her eyes was kind and soothing. Katherine was playing the “Chopin” from Schumann’s “Carnaval,” and Peter, still holding his ankle and feeling rather like a naughty little boy forgiven, did not look at the fantastic volume she held, but at Hilda herself. How blue the shadows were on the milky whiteness of her skin. Odd’s eyes followed the thick, soft eddies of hair about her forehead. “Aren’t the margins generous?” said Hilda, turning the pages; “a mere trickle of print through the whiteness. ”

“ The clever feminine eye is quick to remark the subtlest signs of fatuity or complacency. Katherine’s eye was very clever, and this morning, in looking at Odd, she was conscious of a little inner sigh. Katherine had asked herself more than once of late whether a husband, not only too superior for success, but morally her superior, might not make life a little wearing. Some such thought crossed her mind now as she met his eyes, and she realized that through Allan Hope’s discomfiture she herself was as wrongly placed as ever, and Hilda’s drudgery as binding. ”

“ This bracketing of Hilda’s injury with hers stank in Katherine’s nostrils. She controlled a quivering rage that ran through her, and, speaking a little more slowly for the tension she put upon herself—
“I can imagine no greater humiliation than the one you were so chivalrously preparing for me,” she said. “Marriage with an unloving man! I can imagine nothing more insulting. I deserved the truth from you, and how dared you think of degrading me by withholding it?” The white indignation of her own words almost impressed Katherine with their sincerity. ”

“ The flesh may be weak, but the spirit is willing with a vengeance. Eh, Hilda?”
“Yes,” said Hilda vaguely.
They walked in silence through the woods. Clouds hid the moon, and the wind had risen.
Peter had dreary thoughts. He felt like a ghost in the ghost-like unreality of existence. The walk through the melancholy dimness seemed symbolical of a wandering, aimless life. The touch of Hilda Archinard’s little hand in his was comforting. When they had passed through the Priory shrubbery and were nearing the house, Hilda’s step beside him paused. ”

“ Odd went on; “and you dare!”
“No, no; all she says may be true!” moaned Hilda. She dropped upon the sofa and hid her face in her hands, adding brokenly: “And how can you be so cruel? so cruel to her? She loves you too!”
Katherine turned savagely upon her sister, and then, impulse nipped by quick reflection—
“You need not allow for a woman’s jealousy, Mr. Odd. Don’t, no indeed you must not, flatter yourself with my broken heart. I don’t like humiliation for myself or for others. I don’t like to scorn my sister whom I trusted, whom I loved. ”

“ The very lack of passion now seemed an added surety of better things. His life with Katherine could count on all that his life with Alicia had failed in. He did not reason on that unexcited sense of impersonality and detachment. He would like her to accept him. He would like to help this fine, proud young creature; he would like sympathetic companionship. He was sure of that. He had not surprised Katherine; she had seen, as clearly as he now saw, what Peter Odd would do. ”

“ Odd’s eyes involuntarily dropped to the blue shadow on Hilda’s throat.
“Everything you do is worth while—from painting to dancing. You dance very well.”
The white fragility of her neck and shoulders, in the generous display of which he recognized the gown’s quondam possessor, gave him a little pang of fear. She looked extremely delicate, and the youthfulness of cheek and lip pathetic. That wretched drudgery! For, even through the happy candor of her eyes, he saw a deep fatigue—the long fatigue of a weary monotony of days. ”

“ Odd felt that Allan was probably quite right. They hardly spoke of Hilda, but in Hope’s congratulations on Peter’s engagement there was a ring of heartfelt brotherly warmth that implied much, and left Peter in a gloomy rage with himself for feeling miserable. Peter had not analyzed the darks and glooms of the last few days.
Growth does not admit of much self-contemplation. One wakes suddenly to the accomplished change. If Peter was conscious of developments, he defined them as morbid enlargements of that self-doubt which would naturally thrill under the stress of new responsibilities. ”

“ Alicia’s expressive eyebrows and gayly languid eyes made her even more uncomfortable than Lord Calverly’s appreciative monocle—the monocle turning on her more than once while its wearer lounged with abrupt, lazy laughs near Alicia. Hilda wondered if Mrs. Odd liked a man who could so laugh and lounge, and a vague disquiet and trouble, a child’s quick but ignorant sense of sadness stirred within her, for if Katherine had been right, then Mr. Odd must be unhappy. ”

“ There was a black bow in the ruffled bodice, and with her black hair she made on the gold and gray a colorless silhouette.
Odd jumped over the wall, and, as he approached her, the rustling leaves under his feet, their falling patter from the trees, seemed to fill the air with loud whisperings. Hilda turned at this echo of her own footfalls, and Odd could almost have smiled at the weary unexpectancy of her look transformed to a wide gaze of recognition. ”

“ Money was a necessity if one wanted a life free for highest flights; and she added very calmly that she might herself, after consideration, find it possible to be nice to him. Rather amusing, Katherine thought it, to meet a man whom one could at once docket as eligible, and find him preoccupied with a dreamy memory of such slight importance as Hilda’s child friendship; but Katherine’s certainty of the slightness—and this man of forty looked anything but sentimental—left her very tolerant of his preoccupation. ”

“ He was fond of Hope and Hope fond of him, and they talked as old friends talk, with the intimacy that time brings; an intimacy far removed from the strong knittings of sympathy that an hour may accomplish; for, though Odd understood Allan very well, Allan did not muddle his direct views of things by a comprehension that implied condonation. He thought it rather a pity that Odd had not made more of his life. Odd’s books weren’t much good that he could see; better do something than write about the things other men have done. ”

“ That Hilda spent her life in drudgery, and that she spent hers in pleasure-seeking, were facts most palpable to Katherine’s very impartial vision. She knew she was wrong, and she knew that only frank avowal would meet Peter’s severity and touch his tenderness and humor. If she heaped shame on her own head, he would be the first to cry out against the injustice. ”

“ Odd flushed.
“You exaggerate,” he said, but he liked her for the exaggeration.
“I did not know till yesterday that papa owed to you his Riviera trip.”
“Really, Katherine”—he had not used her name before, it came now most naturally with this new sense of intimacy—“you mustn’t misunderstand, misjudge your father. He couldn’t work; his life has unfitted him for it; it would be a false pride that would make him hesitate to ask an old friend for a loan; an old friend so well able to lend as I am. You women judge these things far too loftily.” And Peter liked her for the loftiness. ”

“ I have had no youth, no happiness. Every moment of forgetfulness means redoubled keenness of gnawing anxiety. Debts! Duns! harassing, sordid cares that drag one down. Mr. Odd, I have had to coax butchers and bakers; I have had to plead with horrible men with documents of all varieties! I have had to pawn my trinkets, and all with surface gayety; everything must be kept from mamma, and papa’s extravagance is incorrigible.”
Odd was all grave amazement, grave pity, and admiration.
“You are a brave woman, Katherine.” ”

“ Hilda denies herself the commonest comforts of life, not only to give you the luxuries, but because her high sense of honor rebels against spending on herself money that is owed to others. Don’t misunderstand me; I don’t ask any such perhaps overstrained sense of responsibility from you. You have, no doubt, been fully justified in living your own life; but could it not have been lived with a little less elegance? I am sure that you would be welcomed everywhere, Katherine, with even fewer gowns and fewer gloves. ”

“ Katherine smiled so gayly, and looked so charmingly in the amethyst velvet, that Peter forgot for a moment to wonder where Hilda was, but Katherine did not forget.
“I expect Hilda every moment. I have told them to wait tea until she comes, poor dear! ‘Them’ is Wilson, whom you saw, I suppose; Taylor, our old maid; and the cook! The cook is French, otherwise our staff is shrunken, but of the same elements. One doesn’t mind having no servants in a little box like this. Yes, mamma, I have paid all the calls, and only two people were out; so I deserve petting and tea. I hope Hilda will hurry.” ”

“ I like our work immensely, as you know.” Katherine remained standing by the fireplace. She leaned her arm on the mantelpiece, and turned her head to look directly at him. “I am not at all happy this morning, Mr. Odd.” Odd’s kind eyes showed an almost boyish dismay.
“What is it? Can I help you?” His tone was all sympathetic anxiety and friendly warmth.
“No; just the contrary. Mr. Odd, I am ashamed that you should have seen the depths of our poverty. It is not a poverty one can be proud of. Poverty to be honorable must work, and must not borrow.” ”

“ While Katherine spoke, the bitter struggle of the fine young life, surely meant for highest things; the courage of the cheerfulness she never before had failed in; the pride of that repulsion for the often offered solution to her difficulties—a solution many women would have accepted with a sense of the inevitable—became admirably apparent to Odd. Their mutual sympathy and good-fellowship and, almost unconsciously, Hilda’s assured future—Allan Hope—had defined the thought. ”