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Empty Sack

<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> On the day after the visit to Collingham Lodge, Bob left for the camp in the Adirondacks. As yet he had no knowledge of the family's attitude toward him more exact than he could infer. He had written to them all since his return, but their replies, even Edith's, had been noncommittal. He guessed that they had decided together not to express themselves fully till they came face to face with him. Even then, the approach to his own affairs was indirect. An affectionate family reunion, based seemingly on the ground that nothing had happened when so much had, blocked the openings for bringing up the subjects he had most at heart. During the early part of that first evening at Sugar Maple Point he couldn't get anyone alone. Not till nearly bedtime did he himself offer a lead by strolling out into the moonlight in the hope that one of the three would follow him. It was full moonlight, turning Sugar Maple Lake into a sheet of silver and gold laid at the base of a velvety silhouette of mountains. The magic of stillness, the tang of the forest, the repose of the spirit from the girding and striving of the world—these lovelinesses came to Bob Collingham with a peace such as they always brought, but which to-night couldn't find a resting place. It couldn't find a resting place because in this tranquil woodland more than anywhere else he found himself wishing that Teddy Follett wasn't in a cell. Sugar Maple Lake is small for the Adirondacks, being no more than three miles long and a mile and a half in width. All its shores are owned by rich men, mostly from New York, who can keep themselves secluded. In seclusion they are able to combine rusticity with the amenities of life, in a wealthy, modern, American version of Marie Antoinette's humble village at Versailles. At a stranger's first glance, the "camps" are but lumbermen's log cabins on a larger scale; but when you come to the conveniences and luxuries of living, they differ little from Marillo Park. Reaching the thin line of maples and pines fringing the edge of the lake, Bob turned to see if he was followed. At first there was no one. The light from the windows and doors made a golden splotch on the greenish silvery black of the sloping lawn, but no figure appeared in the glow. Coming to the conclusion that this, too, was "a put-up job," he was strolling back again when his mother, cloaked against the night air, stole out and called his name softly. On reaching him she took his arm, and together they picked their way along a graveled path leading toward the Point. "I'm so glad you've come," she said, instantly. "I've been having such a terrible time with your father. You know how he is—so stern—so relentless—" "He's been corking to me." "You mean the cablegram he sent you to Rio? Oh, well, I made him do that. It's all over now, dear, and you mustn't worry; but at first—that night when we heard that the Follett boy had got into trouble and I had to tell your father of your marriage—well, I don't want to make things out worse than they are, so I sha'n't tell you what he said; but I did manage him. I soothed him and told him how he ought to take it and what he ought to do—with the result that you got that message. You mustn't think it was easy, dear—" "You've been a brick, old lady!" "I'm your mother, Bob. It's all summed up in that. Whatever makes for my children's happiness makes for mine. Your father is not a woman, and that's the difference between us. And now I've had all this trouble with him over Edith's engagement; but he's given in at last." Bob sprang away from her. "Edith engaged? Who to? Not to Ayling?" She took his arm again, continuing toward the Point. "Yes, to Ernest. He was so opposed to it. But I've battled for my child's heart, Bob, and I've won out. Your father is giving her ten thousand a year. It isn't much, but they ought to be able to manage. We didn't write you, partly because it was only settled last week, and it was easier to wait and tell you." "But I thought you didn't like the match yourself, old girl." "Oh, me! I have to turn myself every way at once. I've no wishes of my own. To reconcile my children to their father and their father to my children is all I live and work for." Coming to the little rustic gazebo perched on the tip of the Point, they entered and sat down. There being nothing to obtrude itself here on lake and moon and mountain, it was as if they had left human crudities behind. In the windless air, the fragrance of Bob's cigarette mingled with the aromatic pungency of millions and millions of growing things. "There was simply nothing else to be done," Junia resumed. "There was Edith eating her heart out and stubborn as a mule—and with the mess you've made of things—not that you could foresee—or know the sort of people you were getting in among—" It was the opening he had been looking for, and he knew that, whatever the outcome, he must use it. "Exactly what do you mean by that, mother?" She seemed confused. "I don't suppose I mean anything—except what's obvious." Not to press the point at once, he said, "You saw Jennie." "Yes; I sent for her." "What did you think of her?" "Oh, what anyone would think. She's charming—to look at." "Only to look at?" "Her manner is charming, too. Of course! I—I don't quite know what you want me to say." "How much did she tell you that afternoon?" She looked at him through the moonlight. "Hasn't she told you?" "She's told me nothing—except that you were lovely." "Then, Bob dear, I'm afraid I can't add anything. You see, they were her secrets—" "Oh! Then she told you secrets!" "Why, of course! What did you think?" "Any other secret besides that she and I had been married?" "Bob darling, I don't think it's fair to put me on the witness stand. She's your wife—and because she's your wife I accept her. What I know is buried here"—she smote her chest—"and if for your sake and hers I try to forget it I think you might let me." For a few minutes he smoked in a silence broken only by the maniac cry of a loon in the distance. "Did it occur to you," he asked at last, "that she was a very simple girl who could easily become entangled in her talk when she tried to explain things to a woman of the world?" "No; because the things said were very simple—just statements of fact as to which there could be no misunderstanding." "Had the statements of fact anything"—he moistened his dry lips—"anything to do with—with Hubert?" "Some of them. But there!" She caught herself up. "You're not going to make me tell you things. I'm your mother, and if I intervene at all, it must be in the way of helping you to come together and not of putting you apart." She rose, drawing her cloak about her. "I think I must go in, dear. I'm beginning to feel the damp." He, too, rose, sitting down again sidewise on the rustic rail of the summerhouse. "Wait a minute, mother. I want to ask you something. When I was at Marillo I wandered into your room one day and saw a picture." "A picture?" "Yes; a picture; and I—I wondered how it—it happened to come there." She bent a little toward him, drawing her cloak more closely about her. If it was acting it was well done. "It—it couldn't have been—" He chucked the butt of his cigarette into the lake. "Yes, I guess it was. It had an inscription on it—'Life and Death, by Hubert Wray.'" "Oh, my God! Where did you say you saw it, Bob?" "In your bedroom, against the wall. I thought it might be a portrait you'd had done, and so lifted—" "And I told them to put it out of sight. You see, Hubert didn't send it till after we'd left the house—just before he went to California. I'd given orders that it was to be locked up in an empty closet in my wardrobe room. Oh, Bob darling, I don't know what you're going to think of me." "Oh, you're all right, mother. It wasn't you. I—I only wondered how you'd come by the thing at all." She made an obvious effort at controlling emotion. "Why, Bob, it was this way. After—after what Jennie told me that day I—I naturally thought a good deal about Hubert—and—and their relations to each other—" "She talked about them, did she?" "Well, you see, in a way she had to. She was let in for it, poor thing. I can't tell you everything without giving you the whole story—and it's her story, as I've said before. I've no right to betray her, and least of all to you." "All right. Go on." "So when I'd heard that Hubert had a new picture at the Kahler Gallery—and everyone was talking about it—and I knew from the things they said what—what sort of a picture it was—" "Yes, yes; I understand." "Well, then, I—I went and saw it; and to—to get it out of sight I bought it on the spot. I didn't want it to be still on exhibition when you came back; and I hoped that people would forget it. I should have burned it at once, only that Hubert delayed sending it, and—well, you see how it happened. But even so, Bob dear, you knew you were marrying a model—" "Oh yes; it isn't that—not altogether." She laid her hand on his shoulder. "What is it, Bob darling? Can't you tell me? I'm your mother, dear—" But he moved away from her touch, as if unable to bear sympathy. "I can't tell you yet, old lady. I must see my own way first. I've got to get through this business about the boy before I take any step whatever. She knows pretty well that I know that—that she and Hubert are in love with—with each other—" "Oh, but Hubert is not in love with her. He told me so." "Not in love with her?" he cried, sharply. "Why isn't he?" "He said—oh, Bob, I can't talk about it. You'll—" "You've got to talk about it, mother. I can't half know. I must know! If he wasn't in love with her, what did he mean by making her think—" "I don't believe he did make her think. He hinted that—that there'd been something between them, but that—that with girls of that sort you—you couldn't call it love." "Why couldn't you?" "Because—no, I won't, Bob! I'm your mother. I must make things easier for you, and not harder, and so—" "It will make things easiest for me to know the truth. So go on! Out with it! Tell me just what he said." She wrung her hands beneath the cloak. "He said it—it couldn't be love—with a girl whom—whom anyone could—" He sprang from the rail, holding up his hand. "Wait a minute, mother! Jennie's my wife. I'm her husband. I believe in her." With her speed in trimming her sails to the wind, Junia caught the direction. "I don't want you not to believe in her, Bob. I didn't want to say any of the things that—that you've been dragging out of me. You know that." "Yes, I know that, old lady, and I'm grateful. I had to drag them out and know the worst that could be said, so as to contradict it in—in my heart." "Oh, in your heart!" "Yes, in my heart. It's where I'm strongest—just as it's where dad is strongest, too, if he'd only been true to himself. But that's a side issue. What I want to say now—and what I'd like you to understand—is that I know that Jennie is good and pure and true and one of the sweetest and loveliest spirits God ever made. I know it!" Junia couldn't be as feminine as she was without gazing in awe and admiration at the tall, upright figure, which seemed taller and more upright for the moonlight. "Would you know it—mind you, I'm only putting it this way—would you know it—with her own evidence to the contrary?" "Yes, mother; I should know it—with her own evidence to the contrary." She shivered and turned away from him. "I must really go in now, dear. I'm so afraid of catching cold. But—but good night!" Having kissed him, she went down the steps, turning once more to look back at him. Silhouetted against the oblong of light between two rough pilasters, he was mechanically taking out his case and selecting a cigarette. "You're splendid, Bob," she said, with a ring of sincerity that startled him. "That's the way to love a woman. If there were only more men like you! And—I will say it, in spite of the things you've just made me confess—there must be something very, very good in a girl to—to call forth that kind of love." But Jennie herself made that kind of love more difficult. On returning to town Bob found her changed. During all the weeks of the modus vivendi she had been gentle, submissive, grateful, accepting his terms in the provisional spirit in which she understood them, and carrying them out. When Teddy's affairs were settled—and they never defined what they meant by that—she knew they were to have a reckoning; but the reckoning was to be postponed till then. And now, all at once, she seemed disposed to force it on. His visit to his family had frightened her. It frightened her the more in that he said so little about it. He, too, was changed. He was silent, pensive. He watched her more and talked to her less; but when he watched her his eyes, so she said to herself, had a queer kind of sorrow in them. She didn't wonder at that. Anyone's eyes would have had sorrow in them—anyone who was seeing Teddy nearly every day and filling him up with fortitude. If it had not been for Teddy's sake she would have done her best to get Bob "out of it" long ago. Her fear now was of not being able to make this attempt of her own accord. In other words, she shrank from being found out before confessing of her own free will. Twenty words from Mrs. Collingham to her son would rob her, Jennie, of such poor shreds of good intention as she still possessed. The trouble was, first, the lack of opportunity, and then, the waiting for the right emotional moment. It was not a thing you could spring at any chance hour of the day. Something must lead up to it and make it natural. But a week after his return from Sugar Maple Point, the occasion seemed to present itself. It was one of those evenings in late September when indoors was too stifling. In pursuance of his plans for distracting the family, which meant so much to Teddy, Bob had motored the mother and daughters to a small country restaurant, where they had had supper, and had brought them home again. Lizzie and the two girls having said good night, Jennie was about to do the same, but he held her by the hand. "Don't go in. Let's walk a bit." "So it's come," Jennie thought. "I must do it before we get home." Even so she put it off. He, too, put off whatever in himself was burning to find words. They said as little as they could without being altogether silent, and that little was mere commonplace. "Wonderful night, isn't it?" "Yes; and I think we're going to have a breeze. It isn't so hot as an hour ago." "Anyhow, the hot weather must be nearly over. It will be October in a day or two." "But we often have very hot days in October. I remember that last year—" So they came to Palisade Walk and turned into it. Though the moon was not yet up, the effulgence of its approach made a halo above the city. Manhattan was a line of constellations the riverway a gulf of darkness in which were scattered stars. Along the parapet, shadowy couples, mostly lovers, formed little ghostly groups, while here and there was the point of light of a cigarette or cigar. They came to a halt, Jennie leaning against one of the dragon's teeth, looking over at the city, Bob standing a little back from her. "I've never been here at night before," he said. "I'd no idea it was so beautiful." "We don't come very often ourselves. We live so near that I suppose we're used to it." "We had some wonderful evenings at Sugar Maple Point; but that was another kind of thing." She assembled her forces without turning to look at him or making any change in her tone. "I suppose you talked to your mother while you were up there?" "Oh, of course!" "About me?" Divining what was coming, he was on his guard. "You were mentioned—naturally." "And she told you things?" "Some things." "Some things about me that—that were new to you?" "Yes; some things about you that were new to me." "Did she tell you—everything?" "I'm not in a position to say that it was everything; but—but I rather think it was. What of it?" "Oh—only, that—that I'm as bad as she said I was. I—I wanted you to know that it was true." The long stillness was broken only by a moan like that of a wounded monster from a ferryboat far away. "Why do you want me to know that?" he asked, at length. "So that you'll see now that when—when everything is over about Teddy—you'll be—you'll be free." "But suppose I don't want to be free?" "But I want it for you." "Why?" "Oh, it's very simple." She turned, leaning with her back to the rock. "It's just this, Bob—I'm not fit to be your wife. I never was fit. I never shall be fit. There it is in a nutshell. It isn't education and social things that I'm talking about. I'm—I'm too—I don't know how to put it—but you're so big—" "We'll drop all that, Jennie, if you don't mind, because it isn't a case of fitness on either your part or mine; it's one of love." She hung her head. "Oh, love! I—I don't think I—I know what it is." "I'm sure you don't. It's what I've told you. I want to show you what it's like. Do you know what I said to the old lady when she got off those things? She didn't want to do it, mind you," he hastened to explain. "She wanted to keep your secrets and be true to you—but I dragged them out of her. And do you know what I said to her? Well, I'm going to repeat it to you now. I said I wouldn't believe anything against you—not even on your own evidence." "Is that love, Bob—or is it just being stubborn?" "I shall let you find that out for yourself—as we go on." "Oh! as we go on?" "Yes, as we go on, Jennie. We're going on. Don't make any mistake about that. I know how you feel. Everything looks so dark to you now that you can't believe it will ever be light again; but it will be, Jennie. All families and all individuals go through these experiences—not as terrible as yours, perhaps—but terrible all the same. Not one of us is spared. Sometimes it seems to you as if you just couldn't go through with it; but you can. You must hang on—and bear it—and it will pass. That's what I'm here for—to help you to hang on—and, Jennie, clinging together, as we're doing, we'll come out to the light—even Teddy—and your mother. Oh, look! There the light is now—the light everlasting—that always comes back, if we only wait for it!" At the pointing of his finger and his sudden cry she turned to face the eternal wonder of the moonrise. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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