James Cabell - The Cords of Vanity. A Comedy of Shirking

"And besides, why not ?" I said,—for the eleventh time.

"There are a thousand reasons. I am not your equal, I am just an ostensible actress—Why, it would be your ruin!"

"My dear Mrs. Grundy, I confess that, for the moment, your disguise had deceived me. But now: I recognize your voice."

She laughed a little. "And after all," the grave voice said, which was, to me at least, the masterwork of God, "after all, hasn't one always to answer Mrs. Grundy—in the end?"

"Why, then, you disgusting old harridan," said I, "I grant you it is utterly impossible to defend my behaviour in this matter, and, believe me, I don't for an instant undertake the task. To the contrary, I agree with you perfectly,—my conduct is most thoughtless and reprehensible, and merits your very severest condemnation. For look you, here is a young man, well born, well-bred, sufficiently well endowed with this world's goods, in short, an eminently eligible match, preparing to marry an 'ostensible actress' a year or two his senior,—why, of course, you are,—and of whose past he knows nothing,—absolutely nothing. Don't you shudder at the effrontery of the minx? Is it not heart-breaking to contemplate the folly, the utter infatuation of the misguided youth who now stands ready to foist such a creature upon the circles of which your ladyship is a distinguished ornament? I protest it is really incredible. I don't believe a word of it."

"I cannot quite believe it, either, Bobbie—"

"But you see, he loves her. You, my dear madam, blessed with a wiser estimation of our duties to society, of the responsibilities of our position, of the cost of even the most modest establishment, and, above all, of the sacredness of matrimony and the main chance, may well shrug your shoulders at such a plea. For, as you justly observe, what, after all, is this love? only a passing madness, an exploded superstition, an irresponsible ignis fatuus flickering over the quagmires and shallows of the divorce court. People's lives are no longer swayed by such absurdities; it is quite out of date."

"Yes; you are joking, Bobbie, I know; yet it is really out of date—"

"But I protest, loudly, my hand upon my heart, that it is true; people no longer do mad things for love, or ever did, in spite of lying poets; any more than the birds mate in the spring, or the sun rises in the morning; popular fallacies, my dear madam, every one of them. You and I know better, and are not to be deceived by appearances, however specious they may be. Ah, but come now! Having attained this highly satisfactory condition, we can well afford to laugh at all our past mistakes,—yes, even at our own! For let us be quite candid. Wasn't there a time, dear lady, before Mr. Grundy came a-wooing, when, somehow, one was constantly meeting unexpected people in the garden, and, somehow, one sat out a formidable number of dances during the evening, and, somehow, the poets seemed a bit more plausible than they do today? It was very foolish, of course,—but, ah, madam, there was a time,—a time when even our staid blood rejoiced with a strange fervour in the summer moonlight, and it was good to be alive! Come now, have you the face to deny it,—Mrs. Methuselah?"

"It has not been quite bad to be alive, these last few hours—"

"And, oh, my dear, how each of us will look back some day to this very moment! And we are wasting it! And I have not any words to tell you how I love you! I am just a poor, dumb brute!" I groaned.

Then very tenderly she began to talk with me in a voice I cannot tell you of, and concerning matters not to be recorded.

And still she would not promise anything; and I would give an arm, I think, could it replevin all the idiotic and exquisite misery I knew that night.

Yet I approached the garden on Saturday night with an elated heart. This was the last evening of the engagement of the Imperial Dramatic Company. To-morrow the troupe was to leave Fairhaven; but I was very confident that the leading lady would not accompany them, and by reason of this confidence, I smiled as I strode through the city of Fairhaven, and hummed under my breath an inane ditty of an extremely sentimental nature.

As I bent over the little wooden gate, and searched for its elusive latch, a man came out of the garden, wheeling sharply about the hedge that, until this, had hidden him; and simultaneously, I was aware of the mingled odour of bad tobacco and of worse whiskey. Well, she would have done with such people soon! I threw open the gate, and stood aside to let him pass; then, as the moon fell full upon the face of the man, I gave an inarticulate, startled sound.

"Fine evening, sir," suggested the stranger.

"Eh?" said I; "eh? Oh, yes, yes! quite so!" Afterward I shrugged my shoulders, and went into the garden, a trifle puzzled.

I found her beneath a great maple in the heart of the enclosure. It was a place of peace; the night was warm and windless, and the moon, now come to its full glory, rode lazily in the west through a froth of clouds. Everywhere the heavens were faintly powdered with stardust, but even the planets seemed pale and ineffectual beside the splendour of the moon.

The garden was drenched in moonshine—moonshine that silvered the unmown grass-plots, and converted the white rose-bushes into squat-figured wraiths, and tinged the red ones with dim purple hues. On every side the foliage blurred into ambiguous vistas, where fireflies loitered; and the long shadows of the nearer trees, straining across the grass, were wried patterns scissored out of blue velvet. It was a place of peace and light and languid odours, and I came into it, laughing, the possessor of an over-industrious heart and of a perfectly unreasoning joy over the fact that I was alive.

"I say," I observed, as I stretched luxuriously upon the grass beside her, "you put up at a shockingly disreputable place, Signorina." "Yes?" said she.

"That fellow who just went out," I explained—"do you know the police want his address, I think? No," I continued, after consideration, "I am sure I'm not mistaken,—that is either Ned Lethbury, the embezzler, or his twin-brother. It's been five years since I saw him, but that is he. And that", said I, with proper severity, "is a sample of the sort of associate you prefer to your humble servant! Ah, Signorina, Signorina, I am a tolerably worthless chap, I admit, but at least I never forged and embezzled and then skipped my bail! So you had much better marry me, my dear, and say good-bye to your peculating friends. But, deuce take it! I forgot—I ought to notify the police or something, I suppose."

She caught my arm. Her mouth opened and shut again before she spoke. "He—he is my husband," she said, in a toneless voice. Then, on a sudden, she wailed: "Oh, forgive me! Oh, my great, strong, beautiful boy, forgive me, for I am very unhappy, and I cannot meet your eyes— your honest eyes! Ah, my dear, my dear, do not look at me like that,— you don't know how it hurts!"

The garden noises lisped about us in the long silence that fell. Then the far-off whistling of some home going citizen of Fairhaven tinkled shrilly through the night, and I shuddered a bit.

"I don't understand," I commenced, strangely quiet. "You told me—"

"Ah, I lied to you! I lied to you!" she cried. "I didn't, mean to— hurt you. I did not know—I couldn't know—I was so lonely, Bobbie," she pleaded, with wide eyes; "oh, you don't know how lonely I am. And when you came to me that first night, you—why, you spoke to me as the men I once knew used to speak. There was respect in your voice, and I wanted that so; I hadn't had a man speak to me like that for years, you know, Bobbie. And, boy dear, I was so lonely in my squalid world,—and it seemed as if the world I used to know was calling me— your world, Bobbie—the world I am shut out from."