Part 30 (1/2)

”But all that has nothing to do with me, mother. Oliver is an angel, and this is every bit my fault, not Abby's.” The violence in her soul had pa.s.sed, and she felt suddenly calm.

”Of course, darling, of course. Now that you see what it has led to, you can stop it immediately.”

They were so alike as they stood there facing each other, mother and daughter, that they might have represented different periods of the same life--youth and age meeting together. Both were perfect products of that social order whose crowning grace and glory they were. Both were creatures trained to feel rather than think, whose very goodness was the result not of reason, but of emotion. And, above all, both were gentlewomen to the innermost cores of their natures. Pa.s.sion could not banish for long that exquisite forbearance which generations had developed from a necessity into an art.

”I can't stop his going with her, because that would make people think I believed the things they say--but I can go, too, mother, and I will.

I'll borrow Susan's horse and go fox-hunting with them to-morrow.”

Once again, as on the afternoon when she had heard of Oliver's illness in New York, Mrs. Pendleton realized that her daughter's strength was more than a match for hers when the question related to Oliver.

”But the children, dear--and then, oh, Jinny, you might get hurt.”

To her surprise Jinny laughed.

”I shan't get hurt, mother--and if I did----”

She left her sentence unfinished, but in the break there was the first note of bitterness that her mother had ever heard from her lips. Was it possible, after all, that there was ”more in it” than she had let appear in her words? Was it possible that her pa.s.sionate defence of Abby had been but a beautiful pretence?

”I'll go straight down to the Treadwells' to ask Susan for her horse,”

she added cheerfully, ”and you'll come over very early, won't you, to stay with the children? Oliver always starts before daybreak.”

”Yes, darling, I'll get up at dawn and come over--but, Jinny, promise me to be careful.”

”Oh, I'll be careful,” responded Virginia lightly, as she went out on the porch.

CHAPTER VII

THE WILL TO LIVE

”It's all horrid talk. There's not a word of truth in it,” she thought, true to the Pendleton point of view, as she turned into Old Street on her way to the Treadwells'. Then the sound of horses' hoofs rang on the cobblestones, and, looking past the corner, she saw Oliver and Abby galloping under the wine-coloured leaves of the oak tree at the crossing. His face was turned back, as if he were looking over his shoulder at the red sunset, and he was laughing as she had not heard him laugh since that dreadful morning in the bedroom of the New York hotel.

What a boy he was still! As she watched him, it seemed to her that she was old enough to be his mother, and the soreness in her heart changed into an exquisite impulse of tenderness. Then he looked from the sunset to Abby, and at the glance of innocent pleasure that pa.s.sed between them a stab of jealousy entered her heart like a blade. Before it faded, they had pa.s.sed the corner, and were cantering wildly up Old Street in the direction of Abby's home.

”It is my fault. I am too settled. I am letting my youth go,” she said, with a pa.s.sionate determination to catch her girlhood and hold it fast before it eluded her forever. ”I am only twenty-eight and I dress like a woman of forty.” And it seemed to her that the one desirable thing in life was this fleet-winged spirit of youth, which pa.s.sed like a breath, leaving existence robbed of all romance and beauty. An hour before she had not cared, and she would not care now if only Oliver could grow middle-aged and old at the moment when she did. Ah, there was the tragedy! All life was for men, and only a few radiant years of it were given to women. Men were never too old to love, to pursue and capture whatever joy the fugitive instant might hold for them. But women, though they were allowed only one experience out of the whole of life, were asked to resign even that one at the very minute when they needed it most. ”I wonder what will become of me when the children grow big enough to be away all the time as Oliver is,” she thought wistfully. ”I wish one never grew too old to have babies.”

The front door of the Treadwell house stood open, and in the hall Susan was arranging golden-rod and life-ever-lasting in a blue china bowl.

”Of course, you may have Belle to-morrow,” she said in answer to Virginia's faltering request. ”Even if I intended going, I'd be only too glad to lend her to you--but I can't leave mother anyway. She always gets restless if I stay out over an hour.”

Mrs. Treadwell's illness had become one of those painful facts which people accept as naturally as they accept the theological dogma of d.a.m.nation. It was terrible, when they thought of it, but they seldom thought of it, thereby securing tranquillity of mind in the face of both facts and dogmas. Even Virginia had ceased to make her first question when she met Susan, ”How is your mother?”

”But, Susan, you need the exercise. I thought that was why the doctor made Uncle Cyrus get you a horse.”

”It was, but I only go for an hour in the afternoon. I begrudge every minute I spend away from mother. Oh, Jinny, she is so pathetic! It almost breaks my heart to watch her.”

”I know, dearest,” said Virginia; but at the back of her brain she was thinking, ”They looked so happy together, yet he could never really admire Abby. She isn't at all the kind of woman he likes.”

So preoccupied was she by this problem of her own creation, that her voice had a strangely far off sound, as though it came from a distance.