_ PART NINE. IN WHICH THE RIVER FINDS THE SEA
CHAPTER XXXI. FATE EMPTIES HER CREEL
[FROM SUE PAYNTER]
PARIS, Feb. 10th., 189--
JERRY DEAR:
What must you think of me for delaying so long to write, after the few curt words I found for you that night? I hope you know that something must have kept me and have forgiven me already. Poor little Susy was taken very sick the night you sailed, with violent pains and a high fever. Fortunately there is a good American doctor here--a Doctor Collier--and we pulled her through, though it seemed a doubtful thing at one time. The doctor decided that she had appendicitis (I never heard of it before) and operated immediately on her, which undoubtedly saved her life. It seems that Mother Nature is not quite so clever as we have always thought her and has left a very dangerous little
cul-de-sac somewhere, that ought not to be there, so modern science takes it out. Isn't that strange? The doctor has just come over to operate for this in Germany somewhere; he was an assistant of Dr. McGee, whom you sent to the South, and can't say enough of the magnificent work he is doing there. He was much interested to find I knew all about it and that Uncle Morris stocked the dispensary. Isn't the world small?
I hope you're not feeling too badly about Margarita--don't. Of course I understand what the stage has lost, and you will confess that I was as anxious for her career as anybody, even when I was sorriest for Roger. I wanted her to have her rights as an artist. But if
she doesn't want them--ah, that's a different pair of sleeves altogether. She has sent me her latest photograph, and the eyes are all I need. Of course, I have no such brilliant future to sacrifice, but if I had, I am sure I should throw a dozen of them over the windmill for two eyes like hers to-day!
I don't know why I am prosing along at this rate and avoiding the main object of this letter. I must plunge right into it, I suppose, and get it over.
Don't think I don't appreciate all your kind, your generous, offer meant, Jerry. I thought of it so often and so long before I gave you that brusque answer. And it tempted me for a moment--indeed it did. I think, as you say, that we could travel very comfortably together and we have many of the same tastes--I know no one so sympathetic as you. As for "nursing a rheumatic, middle-aged wanderer through assorted winter-climates," that is absurd, and you know it, though I should be glad enough to do it, if it
were true, as far as that goes. I know all you would do for the children, and how kind you would be to them. Not that I like that part, though, to be quite frank. I could never love another woman's children (especially if I loved their father) and I can't understand the women that do. So I always imagine a man in the same position. And I can't help feeling, Jerry, that if you
really loved me--loved me in the whole crazy sense of that dreadful world, I mean--that you wouldn't speak so sweetly about the children: how could you? How can any man--I couldn't, if I were one!
But this is very unfair, because you never said you did love me in that way--don't imagine that I thought so for a moment. Jerry dear, my best friend now, for I must not count on Roger any more, do you think I am blind? Do you think I have been blind for three years? And will you think me a romantic, conceited fool when I say that unless I--even I, a widow and a jilt, who hurt a good man terribly and got well punished for it!--can have the kind of love that you can never give me, because you gave it to someone else three years ago, I don't want to accept your generous kindness? You see, I know how you can love, Jerry, just as I see now that I never knew how Roger could until those same three years ago. Of course he didn't either--would he ever have known the difference, I wonder, if we had married?
And there is another reason, too. You might just as well know it, for my conceit is not pride really, and it may be you know it already. Whatever love Frederick failed to kill in me--and the very idea of passionate love almost nauseates me, even yet--is not in my power to give you, Jerry dear. It might, some day, later, wake again, but it would not be your touch that could wake it.
Now, since this is so of both of us, don't you see, dear, that things are better as they are? I promise you that if I ever need help, I will come to you
first of all, since what you really want is to help me and make me comfortable and give me the pleasure of wide travel, you generous fellow! And if ever you
really need me, Jerry--but you won't, I am sure. No one else is quite what you are to me, or can be, now, and we must always be what we have always been--the best of friends. Tell me that you know I am right, and then let us never discuss it again.
Yours
always,
SUE.
UNIVERSITY CLUB, May 20th, 189--
DEAR JERRY:
Have just got back from a little Western trip (my brother and I exchanged pulpits for a month) and learned of Roger's illness and the accident. What a terrible thing, and how fortunate they were! I always liked that big dog, the fine, faithful fellow. Mrs. Bradley's leaving the stage was no great surprise to me: she came to New York to ask my advice about it just before the accident. We had a long talk, and though she by no means agreed at the time to everything I said on the subject, she did not seem opposed, herself, to much of it, in fact, she seemed very anxious to do the fair thing, it seemed to me. She appreciated perfectly that the more she did in one way the less she could do in another--how wonderful it is to think that she has never been to school in her life! It almost seems as if so much schooling were unnecessary, doesn't it, when association with educated people can do so much in three years. Or perhaps it is only women that could absorb so quickly.
I hope the doctors are wrong about her voice. They all say it will be a little husky always (though less and less so with time) and that singing, except in the quietest, smallest way, will be impossible. It does not seem to matter very much to her. She is looking very well indeed (you know, of course, that she is expecting another child in the autumn--Roger told me). He is quite magnificent with his thick, silvery hair, I think. Mr. Carter, who dined with me here at the club a night or two ago (he gave my boys a fine talk on German customs and military games) tells me that he hopes (Roger, I mean) to be able to do a great deal of his work on the Island--certainly all the summer and autumn. He seems to be turning into a sort of consulting lawyer, like a surgeon. Besides that great text-book business I suppose you know about. He says there are two or three years' work on that alone.
I hope that you agree with me that Mrs. Bradley is much better off in her husband's home, fulfilling the natural duties of her sex. You seemed to think in your last that Mrs. Paynter would not, to my great surprise. What in the world is the matter with the women, nowadays? Where shall we be if the finest specimens of them have no leisure to perpetuate the race? Are only the stupid and unoriginal, unattractive ones to have this responsibility? I wish I dared get up a sermon on these lines; I may try yet!
You know Mrs. Paynter well, Jerry--do you think there is any chance for me there? I have been for ten years proving that a minister need not be married, and I've done it, too, but it was only because I never met the woman I wanted. I have, now, but she won't have me. Does that mean it's final? I don't know much about women, but I can't believe one like her would refuse just to be asked again. Tell me what you think. She seems very decided, though she sympathises thoroughly with my work.
Yours faithfully,
TYLER FESSENDEN ELDER.
[FROM MY ROUGH DIARY]
May 30, 189--
Have just written Tip Elder how sorry I am about Sue, but that he'd better give it up. She'll never marry. How curiously we three are twisted into the Bradley weaving!
M. so happy and beautiful--the past seems a dream. Voice lovely still, but not quite under her control always, and a tiny roughness in it that humanises, somehow--it was
too clear before, though that sounds absurd.
Everybody wondering how everybody else will take her retirement. Strangely enough, no one regrets much, personally, but all sure the others will! Are we all more clear-sighted than we suppose--or more sentimental? Surgeon from Vienna has pronounced condition final. Either she is a wonderful actress or else we have overestimated her vocation; she seems absolutely contented. And yet, think of her triumphs! And of course, her greatest successes were all to come. Madame M---- is furious, but told Sue she had never trusted Roger--he was always too silent! "He has absorbed a great artist like so much blotting-paper!" she said. But he has got something into her eyes that Madame never saw there: we all agree on that. How did Alif put it--"Tis Allah sets the price, brother--we have but to pay." Well, she's paid. And old Roger, for that matter, and Sue, and Tip--and I. Who keeps the shop, I wonder? _