The Greatest Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
known, she was a sister of Mrs. Williams, visiting indefinitely. Vaguely—and very frequently—hinted, her husband had "left her," and "she did not believe in divorce." Against her background of dumb patience, he shone darkly forth as A Brute of unknown cruelties. Nothing against him would she ever say, and every young masculine heart yearned to make life brighter to the Ideal Woman, so strangely neglected; also some older ones. Her Young Men's Bible Class was the pride of Mr. Williams' heart and joy of such young men as the town possessed; most of Bainville's boys had gone.
"A wonderful uplifting influence," Mr. Williams called her, and refused to say anything, even when directly approached, as to "the facts" of her trouble. "It is an old story," he would say. "She bears up wonderfully. She sacrifices her life rather than her principles."
To Vivian, sitting now on a hassock at the lady's feet and looking up at her with adoring eyes, she was indeed a star, a saint, a cloud of mystery.
She reached out a soft hand, white, slender, delicately kept, wearing one thin gold ring, and stroked the girl's smooth hair. Vivian seized the hand and kissed it, blushing as she did so.
"You foolish child! Don't waste your young affection on an old lady like me."
"Old! You! You don't look as old as I do this minute!" said the girl with hushed intensity.
"Life wears on you, I'm afraid, my dear.... Do you ever hear from him?"
To no one else, not even to Susie, could Vivian speak of what now seemed the tragedy of her lost youth.
"No," said she. "Never now. He did write once or twice—at first."
"He writes to his aunt, of course?"
"Yes," said Vivian. "But not often. And he never—says anything."
"I understand. Poor child! You must be true, and wait." And the lady turned the thin ring on her finger. Vivian watched her in a passion of admiring tenderness.
"Oh, you understand!" she exclaimed. "You understand!"
"I understand, my dear," said Mrs. St. Cloud.
When Vivian reached her own gate she leaned her arms upon it and looked first one way and then the other, down the long, still street. The country was in sight at both ends—the low, monotonous, wooded hills that shut them in. It was all familiar, wearingly familiar. She had known it continuously for such part of her lifetime as was sensitive to landscape effects, and had at times a mad wish for an earthquake to change the outlines a little.
The infrequent trolley car passed just then and Sue Elder joined her, to take the short cut home through the Lane's yard.
"Here you are," she said cheerfully, "and here are the books."
Vivian thanked her.
"Oh, say—come in after supper, can't you? Aunt Rella's had another letter from Mort."
Vivian's sombre eyes lit up a little.
"How's he getting on? In the same business he was last year?" she asked with an elaborately cheerful air. Morton had seemed to change occupations oftener than he wrote letters.
"Yes, I believe so. I guess he's well. He never says much, you know. I don't think it's good for him out there—good for any boy." And Susie looked quite the older sister.
"What are they to do? They can't stay here."
"No, I suppose not—but we have to."
"Dr. Bellair didn't," remarked Vivian. "I like her—tremendously, don't you?" In truth, Dr. Bellair was already a close second to Mrs. St. Cloud in the girl's hero-worshipping heart.
"Oh, yes; she's splendid! Aunt Rella is so glad to have her with us. They have great times recalling their school days together. Aunty used to like her then, though she is five years older—but you'd never dream it. And I think she's real handsome."
"She's not beautiful," said Vivian, with decision, "but she's a lot better. Sue Elder, I wish——"
"Wish what?" asked her friend.
Sue put the books on the gate-post, and the two girls, arm in arm, walked slowly up and down.
Susie was a round, palely rosy little person, with a delicate face and soft, light hair waving fluffily about her small head. Vivian's hair was twice the length, but so straight and fine that its mass had no effect. She wore it in smooth plaits wound like a wreath from brow to nape.
After an understanding silence and a walk past three gates and back again, Vivian answered her.
"I wish I were in your shoes," she said.
"What do you mean—having the Doctor in the house?"
"No—I'd like that too; but I mean work to do—your position."
"Oh, the library! You needn't; it's horrid. I wish I were in your shoes, and had a father and mother to take care of me. I can tell you, it's no fun—having to be there just on time or get fined, and having to poke away all day with those phooty old ladies and tiresome children."
"But you're independent."
"Oh, yes, I'm independent. I have to be. Aunt Rella could take care of me, I suppose, but of course I wouldn't let her. And I dare say library work is better than school-teaching."
"What'll we be doing when we're forty, I wonder?" said Vivian, after another turn.
"Forty! Why I expect to be a grandma by that time," said Sue. She was but twenty-one, and forty looked a long way off to her.
"A grandma! And knit?" suggested Vivian.
"Oh, yes—baby jackets—and blankets—and socks—and little shawls. I love to knit," said Sue, cheerfully.
"But suppose you don't marry?" pursued her friend.
"Oh, but I shall marry—you see if I don't. Marriage"—here she carefully went inside the gate and latched it—"marriage is—a woman's duty!" And she ran up the path laughing.
Vivian laughed too, rather grimly, and slowly walked towards her own door.
The little sitting-room was hot, very hot; but Mr. Lane sat with his carpet-slippered feet on its narrow hearth with a shawl around him.
"Shut the door, Vivian!" he exclaimed irritably. "I'll never get over this cold if such draughts are let in on me."
"Why, it's not cold out, Father—and it's very close in here."
Mrs. Lane looked up from her darning. "You think it's close because you've come in from outdoors. Sit down—and don't fret your father; I'm real worried about him."
Mr. Lane coughed hollowly. He had become a little dry old man with gray, glassy eyes, and had been having colds in this fashion ever since Vivian could remember.
"Dr. Bellair says that the out-door air is the best medicine for a cold," remarked Vivian, as she took off her things.
"Dr. Bellair has not been consulted in this case," her father returned wheezingly. "I'm quite satisfied with my family physician. He's a man, at any rate."
"Save me from these women doctors!" exclaimed his wife.
Vivian set her lips patiently. She had long since learned how widely she differed from both father and mother, and preferred silence to dispute.
Mr. Lane was a plain, ordinary person, who spent most of a moderately useful life in the shoe business, from which he had of late withdrawn. Both he and his wife "had property" to a certain extent; and now lived peacefully on their income with neither fear nor hope, ambition nor responsibility to trouble them. The one thing they were yet anxious about was to see Vivian married, but this wish seemed to be no nearer to fulfillment for the passing years.
"I don't know what the women are thinking of, these days," went on the old gentleman, putting another shovelful of coal on the fire with