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The Voice of the People, a novel by Ellen Glasgow |
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Book 4. The Man And The Times - Chapter 9 |
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_ BOOK IV. THE MAN AND THE TIMES CHAPTER IX When Eugenia went upstairs that night she softly opened Lottie's door and glanced into the room. By the sinking firelight she saw Lottie lying asleep, her hand upon the pillow of her younger child, who slept beside her. The pretty, nerveless hand, even in sleep, tremored like a caress, for whatever Lottie's wifely failings, as a mother she was without reproach. Lottie--vain, hysterical, bewailing her wrongs--was the same Lottie now resting with a protecting arm thrown out--this Eugenia admitted thoughtfully as she looked into the darkened room where the thin blue flame cast a spectral light upon the sleepers. From this shallow rooted nature had bloomed the maternal ardour of the Southern woman, in whom motherhood is the abiding grace. Eugenia closed the door and crossed the hall to Miss Chris, who was reading her Bible as she seeded raisins into a small yellow bowl. The leaves of the Bible were held open by her spectacle case which she had placed between them; for while her hands were busy with material matters her placid eyes followed the text. "I thought I'd get these done to-night," she remarked as Eugenia entered. "I'm going to make a plum pudding for Dudley to-morrow. Where is he now?" "A political barbecue, I believe," responded Eugenia indifferently as she knotted the cord of her flannel dressing-gown. She yawned and threw herself into a chair. "I wonder why everybody spoils Dudley so," she added. "Even I do it. I am sitting up for him to-night simply because I know he'll want to tell me about it all when he comes in." "It's a good habit for a wife to cultivate," returned Miss Chris, shaking the raisins together. "If my poor father stayed out until four o'clock in the morning he found my mother up and dressed when he came in." "I should say it was 'poor' grandmamma," commented Eugenia drily. "But Dudley won't find me after midnight." Then she regarded Miss Chris affectionately. "What a blessing that you didn't marry, Aunt Chris," she said. "You'd have prepared some man to merit damnation." "My dear Eugie," protested Miss Chris, half shocked, half flattered at the picture. "But you're a good wife, all the same, like your mother before you. The only fault I ever saw in poor Meely was that she wouldn't put currants in her fruit cake. Tom was always fond of currants--" in a moment she abruptly recalled herself. "My dear, I don't say you haven't had your trials," she went on. "Dudley isn't a saint, but I don't believe even the Lord expects a man to be that. It doesn't seem to set well on them." "Oh, I am not blaming Dudley," returned Eugenia as leniently as Miss Chris. "We live and let live--only our tastes are different. Why, the chief proof of his affection for me is that he always describes to me the object of his admiration--which means that his eyes stray, but his heart does not, and the heart's the chief thing, after all." "I'm glad you aren't jealous," said Miss Chris. "I used to think you were--as a child." "Oh, I was--as a child," replied Eugenia. Her kindly face clouded. It was borne in upon her with a twinge of conscience that the absence of jealousy which had become the safeguard of Dudley's peace proved her own lack of passion. What a hell some women--good women--might have made of Dudley's life--that genial life that flowed as smoothly as a song. In the flights and pauses of his temperament what discord might have shocked the decent measure of their marriage? Persistent passion would have bored him; exacting love would have soured the charm of his radiant egotism. It was because she was not in love with him, that her love had wisely meted out to him only so much or so little of herself as he desired--and with a sudden arraignment of Fate she admitted that because she had failed in the first requirement of the marriage sacrament, she had made that sacrament other than a mockery. Out of her own unfulfilment Dudley's happiness was fulfilled. "Yes, Dudley suits me," she said absently, "and, what's the main thing, I suit Dudley." "Well, well, I'm glad of it," returned Miss Chris, but in a moment Eugenia was kneeling beside her, her hand upon the open Bible. "Dear Aunt Chris, you haven't told me all," she said. "All?" Miss Chris wavered. "You mean about Bernard?" "I mean about the governor." She closed the. Bible and pushed it from her. "Do you think he is quite, quite happy?" Miss Chris laughed in protest. "Do I believe him to be pining of hopeless love? No, I don't," she retorted. "Oh, not that!" exclaimed Eugenia impatiently. She appeared vaguely to resent Miss Chris's assurance. She was feminine enough to experience an irrational jealousy at the idea of a vacancy which she had done her best to create. It destroyed an example of the permanence of love. "I don't suppose anybody could be happy on politics," observed Miss Chris. "It doesn't seem natural." And she slowly added: "I wish some good woman would marry him." "I don't!" said Eugenia sharply. She rose with a spring from the rug, and left Miss Chris to her reflections and her raisins. In her own room she sat down before the fire and loosened her hair from the low coil on her neck. She drew out the hairpins one by one, until her hands were full, and the thick black rope fell across her bosom. Then she tossed the pins upon her bureau and shook a veil over her face and shoulders. As she settled herself into her chair she glanced impatiently at the clock. Dudley was late, and she listened for his footsteps with the composure of a woman from whom the flush of marriage has passed away. His footsteps were as much a part of her days as the ticking of the clock upon the mantel. If the clock were to stop, she would miss the accustomed sound, but so long as it went on she was almost unconscious of its presence. Her affection for Dudley had grown so into her nature that it was like the claim of kinship--quiet, unimpassioned, full of service--the love that is the end of many happy marriages, the beginning of few. As she sat there she fell vaguely to wondering what her lot would have been had her pulses fluttered to his footsteps as they came and went. She would have known remorseless waitings and the long agony of jealous nights--all the passionate self-torture that she had missed--that she had missed, thank God! She made the best of her life to-day, as she would have made the best of blows and bruises. It was the old buoyant instinct of the Battle blood--the fighting of Fate on its ground with its own weapons. She had insisted strenuously upon her own happiness--and she had found it not in the great things of life, but in the little ones. She was happy because happiness is ours in the cradle or not at all--because it is of the blood and not of the environment. During the first years of her marriage she had intensely sought the relief of outside interests. She had worked zealously on hospital boards and had exhausted herself in the service of the city mission. Then a new call had quivered in her life, and she had let these things go. With the passion of her nature she had pledged herself to motherhood, and that, too, had foiled her--for the child had died. Looking back upon the years she saw that those months of tranquil waiting were the happiest of her life--those monotonous months when each day was as the day before it, when her hands were busy for the love that would come to her, and her heart warmed itself before the future. The child was hers for a single week, and afterwards she had put her grief away and gone back to the old beginning. She had given herself to little kindnesses and trivial interests, for the fulfilment of her nature had withered in the bud. The key turned in the door downstairs and in a moment she heard Dudley in the hall. As her door opened she looked up brightly. "Up, old girl?" he asked cheerfully, and as he came to the fire he bent to kiss her. "Did you make a speech? and what did you say?" she inquired. "Oh, they got a good deal out of me," he responded with a genial recollection which he proceeded to unfold. His eyes shone and his face was flushed. As he stood on the hearth rug before her she admitted with a sigh of satisfaction his physical splendour. The glow of his personality warmed her into an emotion half maternal. She regarded him with the eyes of tolerant affection. "Oh, yes, I think I made a friend of Diggs," he was adding complacently as he flecked a particle of cigar ash from his coat. "He got off a capital story, by the way. I'd give it to you, but I'm half afraid--you're so squeamish." "His jokes don't amuse me," returned Eugenia indifferently. "Who else was there?" "Well, the governor was very much there. He did some stiff talking. I say, Eugie, do you know, I believe he used to have a pretty strong fancy for you--didn't he?" Eugenia looked at him with a laugh. "Oh, a fancy?" she repeated. She moved away, gathering her hair from her shoulders; but in a moment she came back again and rubbed her cheek against Dudley's arm as she used to rub it against General Battle's old linen sleeve. "Dudley," she said with a sudden break, "the baby would have been ten years old to-night--do you remember?" Dudley was looking into the fire; his face grew grave, and he patted Eugenia's head. "You don't say so! Poor little chap!" he exclaimed. They were both silent. Dudley's eyes were still on the flame, but the shadow lifted from his brow. Eugenia's lips quivered and grew firm. She gently drew herself away and began braiding her hair, but her hands were unsteady. In a moment Dudley spoke again. "It was a great pity I lost that governorship," he said abstractedly. A week after this Eugenia went with Juliet Galt to the Capitol to hear a speech in which Dudley was interested. The Senate Chamber was crowded, and as the atmosphere grew oppressive while Dudley's gentleman held the floor, she rose and went out into the lobby where a noisy circle pulsed round Houdon's Washington. She had spoken to several acquaintances, and her hand was in the clasp of a house member from her old county, when she started at the sound of a shrill voice rising above the persistent hum of the legislators and the lobbyists. "I'm a-lookin' for the governor, Nick Burr," it said. "I didn't know the governor posed as a cavalier," laughed the house member, and as a wave of humour lighted the faces around her, Eugenia turned to find Marthy Burr standing in the doorway. She wore a stiff alpaca dress, and beneath the green veil above her bonnet she cast alert, nervous glances from side to side. Her hands clutched, in a deathlike grip, a cotton umbrella and a small, covered basket. Eugenia hesitated for a single instant, and then took a step forward with outstretched hand, a kindly glow in her face; but as she did so the crowd parted and Nicholas Burr reached his stepmother's side. "Why, this is a treat, ma!" he said heartily, and he took the umbrella and the basket from her reluctant hands, despite her warning whisper, "thar's new-laid eggs in thar!" "My dear Mrs. Burr!" exclaimed Eugenia. She lifted her gaze from the homely figure in its awkward finery, to the man who stood beside her. Then she stooped and kissed Marthy Burr on the cheek. "Do let her come home with me," she said. Her eyes fell and a wave of colour beat into her face. An instant before she had felt her act to be entirely admirable; now it flamed before her in a mental revelation that she was a sycophant who sought the reward of an assumed virtue. With the reward had come the knowledge--she had found both in Nicholas's eyes; and as she felt the thrust of self-abasement, she felt also that for the sake of that look she would have kissed a dozen Burrs a dozen times. "You are very kind," said the governor. "But you know I have an empty house." Then he put his arm about Marthy Burr and assisted her down the steps to the walk below. She looked about her with half-frightened, half-defiant eyes, and clung grimly to his powerful figure. As Eugenia watched them, a quick remembrance shot before her. She saw Nicholas Burr as she had seen him in his youth--ardent, assured, holding out his arms to the future, which was to be love, love, love. Now the future had become the present, and the one affection that remained to him was that of the old, illiterate woman, with the rasping voice. He had lost the thing he had lived for--and he was happy. _ |
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