Читать книгу The Sheltered Life - Ellen Glasgow - Страница 6

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Mrs. Birdsong was one of those celebrated beauties who, if they still exist, have ceased to be celebrated. Tall, slender, royal in carriage, hers was that perfect loveliness which made the hearts of old men flutter and miss a beat when she approached them. Everything about her was flowing, and everything flowed divinely. Her figure curved and melted and curved again in the queenly style of the period; her bronze hair rippled over a head so faultless that its proper setting was allegory; her eyes were so radiant in colour that they had been compared by a Victorian poet to bluebirds flying.

She had been, at eighteen, the reigning beauty of Queenborough in an age when only authentic loveliness could hope to be crowned. For the first five years of the eighteen nineties, she had gathered the hearts of men (here the poet speaks again) in her hands. When she appeared every party turned into a pageant. She could make a banquet of the simplest supper merely by sitting down at the table. The Victorian age, even in its decline, worshipped beauty and she was as near perfection in her girlhood as if she had stepped out of some glimmering antique horizon. Moreover, as if form and colour were not sufficient, nature had endowed her with a singing voice so pure in quality that the most famous Romeo of his day had declared her soprano notes to be worthy of Melba. Enraptured by his discovery, he had begged for the privilege of training a new Juliet, and Mrs. Birdsong's family still believed that only an unwise marriage had intervened in the way of a world conquest. For, without warning, to the astonishment and despair of her admirers, Eva Howard had tossed her triumphs aside and eloped with George Birdsong, the least eligible of her suitors. George Birdsong had charm and was unusually well-favoured; but he was nothing more than a struggling attorney, who would be hard pressed to keep a modest roof over her head.

All this had happened twelve years before, and the marriage, so far as one could see, had turned out very well. George, though imperfectly faithful, still adored Eva; and Eva, living on a meagre income and doing a share of her own work, seemed to be happy. Even after George had inherited a modest fortune and thrown it away, the romantic glamour appeared not to diminish. Eva's radiance was so imperishable that, as Mrs. Archbald once remarked, it might have been painted. Happiness looked like that, she added impulsively, but, then, proper pride often flaunted the colours of happiness. "Nobody will ever find out what regrets Eva has had," she had concluded. "Not even if he takes the trouble to unscrew the lid of her coffin."

Now, as she approached the house, Mrs. Birdsong walked buoyantly. The toque of violets on her bronze waves was poised at the correct angle; her puffed sleeves were held back, and her narrow waist was bent slightly; one slender hand, in white kid, grasped the flaring folds of her black taffeta skirt, which trailed on the ground whenever it slipped from her fingers. To a superficial observer, she presented a vision of serene elegance; but Mrs. Archbald was very far indeed from being a superficial observer. "I wonder what is the matter now," she said to herself, pushing aside the curtains and leaning over the window-box of clove pinks and geraniums.

Thinking herself alone in the street, unaware of the row of admiring spectators, Mrs. Birdsong had permitted her well-trained muscles to relax for a moment, while her brilliance suddenly flickered out, as if the sunshine had faded. The corners of her mouth twitched and drooped; her step lost its springiness; and her figure appeared to give way at the waist and sink down for support into the stiff ripples of taffeta. Then, as quickly as her spirit had flagged, it recovered its energy, and sprang bad into poise. As the first whisper reached her, her tired features were transfigured by an arch and vivacious smile. Glancing up at the window, she waved gaily. Starry eyes, curving red lips, the transparent flush in her cheeks, even the delicate wings of her eyebrows,--all seemed to be woven less of flesh than of some fragile bloom of desire.

"How adorable she looks," Etta sighed, with an emotion so intense that it was almost hysterical. Leaning out, she asked eagerly, "Eva, can't you come in for a minute?"

Mrs. Birdsong shook her head with a gesture of regret that was faintly theatrical. Her expression, so pale and wistful the moment before, was charged now with vitality. "Not this afternoon, dear. George will be waiting for me." Then, as if she had drained some sparkling delight from admiration, she passed on to the modest house at the other end of the block.

"I can't believe she was ever more beautiful," Etta murmured, without envy. Her long, bleak face, tinged with the greenish pallor of the chronic invalid, broke out into wine-coloured splotches. Several years before, when she had lost faith in men and found it difficult to be romantic about God, she had transferred her emotion to the vivid image of Mrs. Birdsong.

"If you gush over her too much, she will grow tired of you," said Isabella, who looked subdued but encouraged by what she had found in the garden.

"She won't," Etta rejoined passionately, and burst into tears. "You know she will never tire of me." For a few minutes she sobbed deeply under her breath; then, since nobody tried to quiet her, she stopped of her own accord, and picked up the sleeve of Jenny Blair's coat. Her eyes were usually red, for she cried often, while her family looked on in silent compassion, without knowing in the least what to do. She had come into the world as a mistake of nature, defeated before she was born and she was denied, poor thing, Mrs. Archbald reflected, even the slight comfort that Isabella found in attributing her misfortunes to man. Yet the more tenderly Etta was treated, and her poor health dominated the household, the more obstinate her malady appeared to become.

Jenny Blair, who was still gazing after Mrs. Birdsong, cried out abruptly, "Her face looks like a pink heart, Mamma."

"Don't be silly," Mrs. Archbald retorted. "You are letting your imagination run away with you again."

"But her face is like a pink heart, Mamma. I mean a pink heart on a valentine."

"I can see what she means," Etta said, pausing to wipe away a tear that trembled, without dropping, on the end of her eyelashes.

"Please don't encourage her, Etta," Mrs. Archbald returned, as coolly as she ever permitted herself to speak to her frail sister-in-law. "Now, run away, Jenny Blair, and play a while out of doors. You don't get enough sunshine."

With a ceremonial sweep, the curtains dropped back into place; Jenny Blair disappeared, and Mrs. Archbald threaded her needle. Presently, before beginning a seam, she let her work sink to her lap. With a sigh, she glanced round the library, where the afternoon sunshine splashed over the ruby leather, over the floral designs in the Brussels carpet, and over the old English calf in the high rosewood bookcases. On the mantelpiece, an ornamental clock of basalt, with hands that looked menacing, divided two farm groups in red and white Staffordshire ware.

General Archbald was a man of means according to the modest standards of the nineteenth century, which meant that he was sufficiently well off to provide for his only son's widow and child, as well as for two unmarried daughters and the usual number of indigent cousins and aunts. His daughter-in-law had been left a penniless widow at an age when widowhood had ceased to be profitable. At first she had made an effort to support herself and her child by crocheting mats of spool cotton and making angel food for the Woman's Exchange. But, after that long lost endeavour, nothing had seemed to matter but rest--the perfect rest of those who are not required to make noble exertions. Still disposed to fill out in the wrong places, she had pulled in the strings of her stays and settled down into security. After all, one could bear any discomfort of body so long as one was not obliged to be independent in act.

Gradually, while the sheltered life closed in about her, she had retreated into the smiling region of phantasy. With much patience, she had acquired the capacity to believe anything and nothing. Her hair was just going grey; her fine fresh-coloured skin was breaking into lines at the corners of her sanguine brown eyes; but when she talked the wrinkles were obliterated by the glow of a charming expression. All her life, especially in her marriage, she had been animated by earnest but unscrupulous benevolence.

Now, as she thrust her needle into the stubborn material upon which she was working, she murmured irrelevantly, "I sometimes wonder--"

"Wonder?" Etta's bloodshot eyes opened wide. "About Jenny Blair or Eva Birdsong?"

"Oh, about Eva. Jenny Blair, thank Heaven, hasn't reached an age when I need to begin worrying about her. But the idea has crossed my mind," she added slowly, "that Eva suspects."

"Who could have told her? Who would be so heartless?"

"There are other ways of finding out."

"I can't believe," Isabella broke in, "that she could look so happy if she suspected."

Mrs. Archbald shook her head while she wound the braid on the edge of a sleeve and prodded it with her needle. "You never can tell about that. I am perfectly sure that if she knew everything, she would never betray herself. When happiness failed her, she would begin to live on her pride, which wears better. Keeping up an appearance is more than a habit with Eva. It is a second nature."

"She adores George," Etta's voice trailed off on a wailing note, "and he seems just as devoted as ever."

"He is." Mrs. Archbald gave a short stab at her work. "He is every bit as devoted. I believe he would pour out every drop of his blood for her if she needed it. Only," she hastened to add, "that is the last thing she is likely to need."

"If he feels like that," Isabella demanded impatiently, "why doesn't he let other women alone?"

Mrs. Archbald shook her head with a reserved expression. "You will understand more about that, my dear, when you are married."

"You mean I shall never understand," Isabella retorted defiantly; and to the distress of her sister-in-law, who had been innocent of such meaning, and indeed of any meaning at all, she sprang up and flounced into the dining-room and out of the French window.

"Do you think," Etta asked in a breathless whisper, "that she is going too far?"

"With George Crocker? No, my dear, how could she? Why, he wears overalls. She is only amusing herself, poor girl. I suppose it helps to take her mind off Thomas Lunsford."

"That doesn't seem fair to Joseph. Even in overalls, he is far more attractive than Thomas."

"All the same, I don't believe there is any real harm in it." No, there wasn't any real harm in it, she assured herself, glancing through the dining-room and the French window to the dappled boughs of the old sycamore. Though it was true that young Joseph Crocker was dangerously well-favoured, she had convinced herself that he carried a steady, if too classic, head on his shoulders. The Crockers were good people, plain but respectable, the kind of plain people, she had heard the General remark, who could be trusted in revolutions. Even if poor Isabella, desperate from wounded love and pride, should grow reckless, Mrs. Archbald believed that she could rely, with perfect safety, upon the sound common sense of the two Crockers. Surely men who could be trusted in revolutions were the very sort one could depend upon in a love affair. Only, and here doubt gnawed at her heart, could she be sure that her father-in-law meant what he said or exactly the opposite? His opinions were so frequently unsound in theory that there were occasions, she had observed, with tender reproach, when she should have hesitated to rely upon him, not only in a revolution, but even in an earthquake, which, since it is an act of God, seemed to her a more natural catastrophe.

"I sometimes think," Etta was saying, "that it is a mistake for a man to be too good-looking. That is the trouble with George Birdsong. It isn't really his fault, but his charm is his undoing. I wonder why it is that women seem to bear the gift of beauty better than men? Look at all that Eva gave up when she was married. Yet I am sure she would never waste a regret on her sacrifice if only George would be faithful. I was a child when she ran away with him, but I remember that everybody said he was the only man in Queenborough handsome enough to walk up a church aisle with her."

"I saw her the night she eloped," Mrs. Archbald said softly, "and I shall never forget how lovely she was in peachblow brocade, with a wreath of convolvulus in her hair. Her hair, too, was worn differently, with a single curl on her neck and a short fringe on her forehead. But it wasn't only her beauty. There was something brilliant and flashing--summer radiance, Father used to call it--in her look. Every one stopped dancing to watch her waltz with George. Just to look at them, you could tell they were madly in love, though nobody seemed to think Eva's preference would last. But, of course, we were wrong. Passion like that, after it once runs away with you, cannot be bridled. I shall always remember the way she seemed to float in a transfigured light. You could see it flaming up in her smile. It is the only time," she finished sadly, "that I have ever seen what it meant to be transfigured by joy."

"I suppose," Etta sighed hungrily, "that it was a great passion."

"It is." Mrs. Archbald altered the tense with a smile. "She is still, after twelve years, transfigured by joy--or pride."

"But her life hasn't been easy. They can't afford more than one servant, and I've heard Eva say that old Betsey has to be helped all the time."

"Eva has risen above that. She could rise above everything except George's unfaithfulness. I believe," Mrs. Archbald continued shrewdly, "that what isn't love in her is the necessity to justify her sacrifice to herself--perhaps to the world. To have given up all that--and she really believes that she gave up a career in grand opera--for anything less than a great passion would seem inexcusable. That is at the bottom of her jealousy--that and never having had any children. Of course she can't understand that showing jealousy only makes matters worse. Though she has never opened her lips on the subject, I believe she is worrying herself to death now over George's fancy for Delia Barron. Delia isn't bad at heart, but she will flirt with a lamp-post."

Etta wiped her eyes. "Do you suppose it is true that George has been keeping Memoria? Why, Memoria has done their washing for years."

"Oh, Etta, I try not to think of that."

"But wasn't he taken ill in her house, and didn't Eva have to go to him because they thought he was dying?"

"No, that was another woman. She wasn't coloured, but she was worse than Memoria. I don't care what anybody tells me, I always insist that there is good in Memoria. She has had a hard struggle to bring up her three children, and she has taken devoted care of her mother ever since she was paralyzed. I've never seen any sense in trying to put the blame on the coloured women, especially," she concluded crisply, "when they are so nearly white. Memoria has always worked hard, no matter who keeps her, and I never saw a better laundress when she takes pains. Father always complains if I let anybody else do up his shirts."

"I wonder why those mulatto women are so good-looking," Etta sighed again. "It doesn't seem right."

"Well, I don't know. Perhaps it is some sort of compensation. Your father says that Memoria has noble bones. Of course no man would stop to think that she gets her upright bearing from carrying baskets on her head. Jenny Blair, I thought you'd gone out to play," she said in a sharper tone, as her daughter ran in from the hall.

"I was going, Mamma, but I saw Grandfather coming, and I waited to ask if he will pay me for a hundred and fifty pages. Joseph Crocker says I do need a new pair of skates. He can't make this roller roll any better."

"Well, your grandfather is coming in. You may ask him. But, remember, he isn't so young as you are, and I don't wish you to worry him."

"I won't, Mamma. I saw Mrs. Birdsong, too, and her face is like a pink heart. Joseph says it is like a pink heart on a valentine."

For an instant Mrs. Archbald appeared almost to give up. While she put one hand to her brow, the artificial smile on her lips trembled and dissolved in a sigh. Then, collecting herself with an effort, she patted the stiff roll of her hair, and adjusted her slightly bulging figure to the severe front of her stays. "I don't know what to do with you, Jenny Blair," she said sternly. "You no sooner get an idea into your head than you run it straight into the ground. Now, ask your grandfather, if you choose, and then run out to play before the sun begins to go down."