Eden: An Episode

V

The next morning Eden awoke in her great room that overlooked Fifth Avenue. The night had been constellated with dreams, and now as they faded from her there was one that lingered behind. Through a rift of consciousness she had seen herself talking with feverish animation to Arnswald, on some subject of vital importance, the which, however, she was unable to recall; it had gone with the night, leaving on the camera of memory only the tableau behind. For a little space she groped after it unavailingly, and then dismissed it from her. But still the tableau lingered until it became obscured by her own vexation. She felt annoyed as at an impertinence. What right had Arnswald to trespass in her dreams?

She rang the bell, and when in answer to the summons her maid appeared, she gave herself up to the woman's ministrations. The annoyance faded as the dream had done, and she fell to thinking of the day and of her husband. At one there was a luncheon at which she was expected, and in the evening there was a dinner at Mrs. Manhattan's. Her husband, she knew, had gone to his office hours ago and would not return until late. It had occurred to her before that he worked harder than his clerks; even Arnswald seemed to have more leisure than he. But on this particular forenoon, when her equipment was completed, but one idea channeled her ruminations, and that was that if her husband worked harder than his clerks, it was because of her.

She smiled a little at the thought, and then at herself in the mirror. Truly the guests at the luncheon might have been recruited from the four quarters of the globe, and few could be fairer than she. She was contented with her appearance, not in any sense because it might eclipse that of other women, but because he was proud of it, and because his pride and laborious days were all in all for her. She gave to her gown and to the arrangement of her hair that coup de maître which no maid, however expert, is able to administer, and presently had herself driven up the avenue to the house at which she was to be entertained.

The luncheon, as the phrase is, went off very well. Made up of fresh gossip and new dishes, it was stupid yet agreeable, as women's luncheons are apt to be. But on leaving it Eden felt depressed. It was the first of the kind which in her quality of married woman she had attended, and as her carriage rolled down the avenue again, she wondered were it possible that such things as she heard could be true, the story that had been told about Viola Raritan, for instance, and the general agreement following it that married men were the worst1. Surely, she told herself, they might be, all of them indeed save one, who was above reproach. As for her recent companions, they discredited virtue in seeming to possess it. At the memory of things they had implied, the color mounted to her cheeks.

On the opposite sidewalk a girl was loitering. For a second, Eden, through the open window, eyed her gown. She raised some flowers to her face, and when she put them down again her face was white. Through the window she had seen a cab pass, and in the cab her husband and a woman.

In a conflict of emotions such as visit those who learn the dishonor and the death of one they cherished most, Eden reached her door. She left the carriage before the groom had descended from the box, and hurried into the house. There she entered the drawing-room and sought for a moment to collect her thoughts. It was impossible, she kept telling herself, that such a thing could be. She had been mistaken; it was not her husband that she had seen, and if it were her husband then was he on some errand as innocent as her own. But it was her husband. The effort she was making to deceive herself was useless as broken glass. And as for the woman with whom he was driving, what had he to do with her or she with him? She was certain she had seen her face before.

In her nervousness she rose from her seat and paced the room, tearing her gloves off and tossing them from her as she walked.

In the lives of most of us there are hours of such distress that in search of a palliative we strive as best we may to cheat ourselves into thinking that the distress is but a phase of our own individual imagination, close-locked therein, barred out of real existence, and unimportant and delusive as the creations of dream. And as Eden paced the room she tried to feel that her distress was but a figment of fancy, an illusory representation evoked out of nothing. She had been enervated by the gossip of the lunch-table; a child startled by the possible horrors of a dark closet was never more absurd than she. It was nonsense to suppose that a man such as her husband could be capable of a vulgar intrigue.

On the mantel a clock ticked dolently, as though in sympathy with her woe, and presently to her inattentive ears, it rang out four times. In an hour, she reflected, in two hours at most, he would return. She would ask him where he had been, and everything would be explained. It was nonsense for her to torment herself. Of course it would be explained, and meanwhile —

And as she determined that meanwhile she would give the matter no further thought the butler entered the room, bearing a note on a salver, which he gave to her and withdrew. The superscription was in her husband's handwriting and she pulled the envelope apart, confident that the explanation for which she sought was contained therein. But in it no explanation was visible. It was dated from Wall Street. "Dearest Eden," it ran, "I am detained on business. Send excuses to Mrs. Manhattan. In haste, as ever, J. U."

"Detained on business," she repeated aloud very firmly and pressed her hand to her head. She was calm, less agitated than she had been before. It behooved her to determine what she should do. Seemingly, but one course was open to her, and suddenly she perceived that she had stopped thinking. Night had seized and surrounded her; it was of this, perhaps, that she had spoken to Arnswald in her dream.

In the morning her faith had been unobscured, confident as a flower at dawn. Then doubt had come, and now, as the afternoon departed, so did all belief as well. It was no more hers to recall than the promise of an earlier day. She had done her best to detain it, she had clutched it; but she had questioned, and faith is impatient of coercion and restless if examined. Save its own fair face it brings no letter of introduction; welcome it for that, and it is at once at home; but look askance, and it dissolves into a memory and a reproach. Eden had startled it, unwittingly perhaps; but she had startled it none the less. It had watched its opportunity as a guest illy treated may watch for his; and when suspicion, like the lackey that it is, had held the door ajar, it had eluded her and gone.

Automatically, as though others than herself guided her movement, Eden touched a bell. "Harris," she said, when the man appeared, "go to Mrs. Manhattan's and say that Mr. Usselex and myself are unavoidably prevented from dining with her to-night. That will do." And this order delivered, she resumed her former seat. Down the street she marked advancing dusk. The sun had sunk in cataracts of champagne. Westward the sky was like the apotheosis in Faust, green-barred and crimson, with background of oscillant yellow. The east was already grey. Overhead was a shade of salmon which presently disappeared. Then dusk came, and with it a colorless vapor through which Night, cautious at first as misers are, displayed one sequin, then another, till taking heart it unbarred all its treasury to the world.

For some time after the man had gone Eden remained in the drawing-room. She found her gloves and drew one on again, but the other she tormented abstractedly in her hand. In her enforced inaction she fell to consoling herself as children do, arguing with discomfiture as though its shadow was ineffectual, as though trouble and she were face to face, and yet too far removed one from another to ever really meet. An hour passed, and still she sat unassured, restless of thought and conscious only that an encroaching darkness had obscured a vista on which her eyes had loved to dwell.

Truly the heart has logic that logic does not know, and as Eden let the incidents of the afternoon and of the previous evening parade in dumb show before her, something there was that kept whispering that she was taking appearances for facts. She strove to listen to the whisper, but the fantoches were froward and insistent; the sturdier her effort to dispel them the closer they swarmed. Sometimes of their own accord they would leave her, she would think herself done with them, her eyes filled in testimony to her deliverance, and abruptly back they came. But still the whisper persisted, it was growing potent, and its voice was clear. It kept exhorting to patience, it exorcised appearances, and advanced little pleas of its own.

Eden was only too willing to be guided. "I am impatient," she mused, "but I will wait."

Another hour limped away, and though an hour limps it may leave a balm behind. The lamps in the drawing-room had been lighted, but the servant had come and gone unobserved. Eden was still closeted in herself. "Surely, by eleven at the latest he will return," she reflected, "and then all will be explained. It is a thankless task this of building imaginary dungeons. There are hours in which I let fancies resolve themselves into facts and the facts fossilize into skeletons." An episode of her girlhood came back to her and she smiled. "Perhaps father was right; I may have hemiopia, after all."

She stood up from her seat and was about to leave the room when she heard the front door open, and in a second her husband's step.

Eden drew the portiére aside and looked out in the hall. Usselex had his back to her. He was taking off his overcoat. She spoke to him and he turned at once, one arm still unreleased. At last he freed himself and came to her.

"You got my note, did you not?" he began. "I am sorry about this evening. Could you not go to Mrs. Manhattan's without me? Something always seems to turn up at the last moment."

"I hardly expected you so early," Eden answered. "I sent word to Laura." She was looking at her husband, but her husband was not looking at her. He seemed preoccupied and nodded his head abstractedly.

"Yes, yes," he muttered, with singular inappositeness. "Yes, of course. But there," he added and turned again to the door, "I must hurry."

"Whom were you with this afternoon?" Eden asked.

It was as though she had checked him with a rein. He stopped at once and glanced at her.

"Did you see me?" he inquired; and accepting her silence for answer he continued at once: "It's a long story; I have hardly time to tell it now."

Eden put her hand on his sleeve. "Tell it me," she pleaded.

For the moment he stood irresolute. "Tell me," she repeated, and moved back, motioning him to a chair.

Usselex took out his watch. "I must hurry," he said again. "But there," he added tenderly, "since you wish it, a moment lost is small matter, after all."

Again he glanced at her and hesitated as though expectant of a respite. Eden had her everyday air; outwardly she was calm, but something in her appearance, the twitch of an eyelid, the quiver of a nostril perhaps, revealed her impatience.

Usselex shrugged his shoulders, and for a second, with a gesture that was habitual to him, he plucked at his beard. "No," he repeated, "a moment is small matter, after all. H'm. Eden, some years ago I went abroad. During my absence a cashier whom I trusted, and whom I would trust again, speculated with money that passed through his hands. It was not until my return that I learned of the affair. But meanwhile, as is usual in such cases, he was on the wrong side of the market. The money which he had taken had to be accounted for. I had a partner then, and the cashier confessed the defalcation to him; it was the only thing he could do, and he promised, I believe, that if time were given him he would make good the loss. The amount after all was not large – fifteen thousand perhaps, or twenty at the outside. But my partner was not lenient. He came of a line of New England divines, and had, if I remember rightly, at one time contemplated studying for the ministry. In any event he was then an elder in some up-town Presbyterian church. But virtue is not amiable. Without so much as communicating with me he put the matter in the hands of the authorities, and when I returned the cashier was in Sing-Sing. Eden, you will hardly understand how sorry I was. He had a wife dependent on him – he had children. He had been with me longer than my partner had, and I liked him. Of the two I liked him the better. What he took I have never been able to view as a theft. It was what might be called a forced loan. Had I been here it would have been different; but my partner was obdurate. You see, the fault, if fault there were, was mine. The salary I gave him was small, and each day I allowed temptation to pass between his hands. People say that we should resist temptation. I agree with them; temptation should be resisted; but when a rich man preaches that sermon to the poor, he forgets that where temptation is vague to him it may be potent to his hearer. Oh, I don't mean to uphold derelictions, but to my thinking Charity is the New Testament told in a word. I think that forgiveness is the essence of the teaching of every founder of an enduring creed. However, that is not to the point. The fact remained, the cashier was sent to Sing-Sing, and since then I have done what I could to get him out. It was his wife that I was with to-day. Poor girl! I have been sorry for her; she is but little older than you, and she has had trials to bear such as might have sent another to worse than the grave." He paused, and plucking again at his beard, he looked down at the rug. Eden needed no assurance to feel that his words were heart-whole and sincere. She moved to where he stood and touched him on the arm.

"Don't tell me any more," she said, and as she spoke there came to her voice a tremulousness that was as unusual as it was sweet. "You must let me help her, too."

"Yes, Eden, that I will. It is good of you to speak that way. It is not only good, it is Edenesque. But let me tell you the rest. Governor Blanchford is in town. I went yesterday to the Buckingham, where he is stopping. He could only see me for a moment then, and this afternoon I went again with her. I am to dine with him this evening. When he returns to Albany I think the pardon will be signed." Again he paused and looked at his watch. "I must dress," he added; "will you forgive me – ?"

"Forgive you!" she cried, "it is your turn, now: forgive me."

Usselex moved from her, her hand still in his, and when their arms were fully outstretched, he turned and holding her to him he kissed her on either cheek.

As he left the room Eden could have danced with delight. She ran to the piano and with one hand still gloved she struck out clear notes of joy. Presently, she too left the room, and prepared for dinner. When the meal was served she ate it in solitude, but the solitude was not irksome to her; it was populous with recovered dreams. Among the dishes that were brought her was one of terrapin, which she partook of with an art of her own; and subsequently, in a manner which it must have been a pleasure to behold, she nibbled at a peach – peaches and terrapin representing, as everyone knows, the two articles of food which are the most difficult to eat with grace.

Later, when the meal was done, Eden returned to the drawing-room. Mrs. Manhattan was unregretted. The summer had been fertile enough in entertainments to satiate her for a twelve-month. She had come and gone, eaten and fasted, danced and driven, with no other result than the discovery that the companionship of her husband was better than anything else. To her thinking he needed only an incentive to conquer the ballot. There was no reason why he should not leave Wall Street for broader spheres. She had met senators by the dozen, and he was wiser than them all. He might be Treasurer of State if he so willed, or failing that, minister to the Court of St. James. Even an inferior mission such as that to the Hague or to Brussels would be better than the Street. It was inane, she told herself, to pass one's life in going down town and coming up again merely that another million might be put aside. An existence such as that might be alluring to Jerolomon or Bleecker Bleecker, but for her husband there were other summits to be scaled.

And as Eden, prettily flushed by the possibilities which her imagination disclosed spectacular-wise for her own delight, sat companioned by fancies, determining, if incentive were necessary, that incentive should come from her, the portiére was drawn aside and the butler announced Mr. Arnswald.

"I ventured to come in," he said, apologetically, "although I knew Mr. Usselex was not at home. I wanted – "

"One might have thought your evenings were otherwise occupied," Eden interrupted, a little fiercely. The intercepted note of the preceding evening rankled still. That the young man should receive a letter from a strange woman was, she admitted to herself, a matter which did not concern her in the slightest. But it was impertinent on his part to suffer that letter to be sent to him at her house.

"This evening, however, as you see – " he began blandly enough, but Eden interrupted him again.

"What did you think of it last night?" she asked, with the inappositeness that was peculiar to her.

"You are clairvoyant enough, Mrs. Usselex, to know untold what I thought. It was of that I wished to speak to you. It is rare that such an opportunity is given me."

"To hear Wagner?"