“It was so very kind,” urged Alice, as if pleading for William.
“Yes,” whispered Ursula.
Now the two women regarded each other with somber gravity.
Then Ursula heard herself saying, still in that whispering voice: “Alice, I am going to have a baby.”
“Ah,” murmured Alice. Her worn face smiled at Ursula, but her eyes remained grave.
Ursula stood up quickly, as if distracted. “I am afraid!” she said, almost inaudibly.
Alice did not even pretend to misunderstand. She watched Ursula, and the gravity in her eyes became more intense.
She said: “Do not be afraid. It will not help.”
Ursula suddenly pressed her hands to her face, and again there was silence in the room. It was only after some time that Ursula dropped her hands and gazed at Alice despairingly. “You always understood everything, Alice. I think, after all, that was the reason I never saw you more than two or three times a year. I avoided you, deliberately. I did not know it then, but I know it now. I was always a complacent woman; I was afraid you might see what there was to see.”
Alice did not answer. Compassion was tender about her mouth, and a great sadness.
Ursula gave a short sick laugh. “Don’t look at me like that, Alice. You see too much.”
“Do not be afraid,” repeated Alice.
Ursula interlaced her fingers tightly, and looked down at them. “When I told William, he was beside himself with joy. It is no use telling me not to be afraid, Alice.”
“I know,” said Alice gently. “I was very afraid before Eugene was born. I conquered that. Now I am afraid again.”
Ursula glanced up at her quickly. Alice nodded simply. “I love my boy with all my heart. But now I am terribly afraid. I look at him, and I see a stranger. He thinks I do not see; he thinks I am a fool. I stare at other mothers, and I wonder whether they have this pain in their hearts, that I have. They seem so—contented, as if all were well with them. Do they see, I ask myself, or do they refuse to see? I cannot know. And no mother will ever honestly tell anyone else, not even her own God!”
She sighed. “I know it never helps to cherish fear. A mother can only hope a little, or pray a little. Beyond that, she is powerless. There is a Hindu saying, I believe, that it is an evil thing to love any creature too much, or to fasten one’s hopes too strongly on another.”
She lifted her hands, dropped them on her thin knees, where they lay in an attitude of utter resignation.
“What else is there for any woman, but love? Somewhere I read that God forgives mothers almost any sin. If so, I think it is because of their suffering, which they will never admit to anyone, but which lives with them to the day of their death. No one can help them, not even God, because they have asked so little—the affection of their children—in return for so much more, so terribly much more. But even that is almost always denied them.”
Ursula gazed fixedly at Alice, and momentarily forgot her own pain in the contemplation of Alice’s. “Oh, Alice,” she murmured.
Alice did not speak. Ursula came closer to the other woman and stood beside her. She cried: “I am not afraid of that! With me, it is something else. I don’t want children, Alice. I never liked them, or desired them. I had hoped I might not ever have them. I have seen what they can do to their parents; I don’t want to endure that. I don’t want to waste my life.”
“I wonder,” said Alice, meditatively, her head slightly averted, “if our own parents thought of us as we now think of our children.”
Ursula was silent. She remembered her father. It was not possible that he had been lonely when with her, had waited for her to say the words which would have told him that she cherished him. But, had she really loved and cherished him?
“Oh, William!” she cried, and did not know that she had said this aloud.
She sat down abruptly. Suddenly she gave Alice a white smile. “I wish you were a sentimental woman, Alice. I wish you were a cozy liar. Then you could have said: ‘How delightful, Ursula! A dear little baby! I am so glad for you!’”
Alice did not smile in answer. She leaned forward and took Ursula’s hand strongly, and held it. “Ursula, again I say: Try not to be afraid. Try to remember that even if you are to be a mother you will remain a human being, that you have your own life, and what you do with that life is the most important thing of all. Love, yes. But not too much, not ever too much.”
“I do not expect to love my children to such self-destruction,” said Ursula.
Alice pressed her hand, then released it.
“We can really help no one but ourselves,” she said. “Sometimes, if we are blessed, we can console and comfort. Not always. Only very rarely. We can just stand by and pray that a little of what we have to give will be accepted.”
She stood up, tall and emaciated, and her black skirts rustled about her. Now she hesitated, looking down at Ursula. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it helplessly.
“I wish,” said Ursula, brokenly, “that I had known you better. I wish I might have had you for a friend.”
“But I am your friend,” said Alice, gently.
Ursula shook her head wearily. Then she, too, stood up. “It will make me happy, knowing you are in this house, Alice. I hope you will let me visit you sometimes. It is my home; nothing else will ever be home to me.”
She sat for a long time alone, when Alice had gone. She did not have the strength to move.
PART TWO
“These are my dearly beloved children.”
CORNELIA
CHAPTER XVIII
On December fifteenth the Prescotts took possession of their new home.
Ursula knew man’s anthropomorphic tendency to find, in the movement of the stars, and in universal phenomena outside his own tiny orbit, omens meant for his little self. It had always seemed to her a most silly if almost insane egotism. Nevertheless, she could not help feeling that the very elements were conspiring to force her to sense a certain ominousness in the day on which she entered the great house.
There had been no snow, or even rain, for the eight days before the fifteenth. But on that morning the bleak skies, palely lit by a wan sun, steadily darkened. By noon, fold upon fold of dull-purplish and heavy gray clouds stood crowded and massed from horizon to horizon. Against them, the mountains dissolved, merged into their substance, so that it was impossible to discern any line of demarcation. A grayish-lavender light lowered over the city, too dim to cast shadows, and throwing an atmosphere of desolation down the vistas of every street. It blotted out, or absorbed, most of the usual sounds of the city, so that carriages or wagons passing over cobbled streets gave out a hollow sound, bodiless and unreal. It distorted perspective; houses, churches and other buildings took on a curious flatness and lack of depth.
Shortly after noon, dry sandlike particles of snow began to fall, accompanied by a hard and whining wind. It was hardly a storm, for though white ridges appeared in the fields and in gardens and upon lawns, the wind roughly abrased most surfaces and exposed their stony brownness. The cold pierced the warmest furs and cloaks and coats. It was impossible to keep it out.
The enormous house waited for the family. On every marble hearth in every room a fire blazed. But it could not dispel the gloom outside and the oppressiveness within. Ursula resolutely refused to look at the grounds surrounding the house, lonely and desolate and, as yet, without landscaping. She was conscious, however, of the presence of the mountains beyond the gray and purple clouds. She consoled herself with the promise that in the spring these broken and empty grounds would be planted, graded, green and full of flowering trees. In the meantime, it was best to ignore it all, just as she had carefully refrained from visiting this house more than two or three times during the process of its construction. Everything was now complete, even to the last of the six servants, whom she had never met, since William had delegated Mrs. Templeton to the task of securing them.
Nothing had been spared, Ursula
saw, to make this a magnificent house. She had not proceeded through two rooms before her dismay had become horrified awe and fear. She did not know the extent of her husband’s new fortune; she was shrewdly certain that he still owed much money for this house and these crushing furnishings. He would without doubt be able eventually to pay for it all; in the meantime there must be an astronomical debt hanging over his head. After a little, even her fear and awe were swallowed up in her realization of the pathological vanity, egotism and hidden terror which had built the house and had filled it with these overpowering treasures and baroque decorations.
The reception hall, so vast that the fire at one end, blazing on a black marble hearth, could hardly lift the winter cold to an endurable temperature, was breath-taking enough. The floor was paved in black-and-white marble squares. Black-and-white marble panelling covered the walls. The shadowy ceiling had been decorated with a muted mural, a garden scene. The clusters of gaslights, flickering in dim golden globes, did not give out enough illumination for Ursula to see the details of the painting. Yellow-glass candelabra, circled with many pendent prisms, stood on the mantelpiece. A tremendous grandfather clock, of intricately carved ebony, stood against one wall, its ancient gilded face glimmering in the winter dusk. As Ursula entered the hall, the clock boomed out the stroke of two with so deep and sonorous a note that mournful vibrations echoed back for some moments after the ceasing of the actual strokes.
Ursula and her husband entered the first, and the largest, of the tremendous drawing-rooms. Here there was a sudden change from the black and white and gilt of the reception hall, but the effect was no less oppressive. It had been furnished predominantly in various shades of red, ranging from pale delicate pink to a strong crimson, with flashes, here and there, of turquoise and emerald, of black and white and gold. The walls had been hung with a faint rose satin damask, interspersed occasionally by a plaster bas-relief of a tall Ionian pillar reaching to the ceiling. The incredibly high ceiling had been painted to resemble white marble with black veins. Never, not even in the Imperial Hotel, had Ursula seen such mammoth furniture, such gigantic fireplaces. Throne-chairs, covered with rose damask, stood against the walls. Chairs of turquoise or emerald were grouped around mighty circular tables of mahogany. Sofas, in scarlet or green or determined pink, broke up the vastness of the room. High carved marble pedestals held priceless oxblood porcelain or marble or Chinese lamps. The floor had been covered with an unbelievably huge rug in dull green. Along the walls were gaslights in spun glass, and from the ceiling hung a chandelier like a glittering stalactite of crystal. There was a fireplace at each end of the room, in rosy marble surmounted by Venetian mirrors of a very ornate design. Again, the fires could not entirely banish the cold.
“Glorious,” murmured Ursula, faintly, her frugal German heart sinking abysmally. She looked at the crimson damask curtains looped at every arched window, and closed her eyes.
The second drawing-room was, by comparison with the first, almost a relief, for here sanity had vaguely prevailed. There was a renaissance quality about it. Ivory and gold predominated in the furniture, which, by contrast, appeared delicate and even restrained. But again, there was no escaping the general florid tint, for wine-red velvet portieres and draperies hung at the windows and in the archways, and there were a few rosy chairs mingling with the paler sofas, and ivory and gilt and silver lamps. The fireplaces had been constructed of a creamy marble, possibly, thought the despairing Ursula, because the builder had run out of pink marble. It probably broke his heart, her venomous reflections continued.
The gold satin and antique white of the music room lifted her spirits for a moment. Here there was not even a hint of red. Yet the ivory piano, and the organ (who is going to play the latter? thought Ursula), with its gold-leaf pipes and cream-colored console, managed to give a florid air to what otherwise might have passed as elegance and restraint. Here, too, a fire burned on a yellow marble hearth, but the shadows in the corners of the room were ghostly.
Ursula was, by this time, completely oppressed. It was hard to maintain a happy smile, and to keep up a constant bubble of admiring and awed remarks. William stalked beside her, weighing every word and exclamation she uttered.
Now she entered the dining-room, also huge. The dark walnut walls, the subdued chandeliers, the fire lurking on a brown marble hearth, filled her with despondency. Here furniture, monolithic and ponderous, petit-point chairs in dull shades, a round table which even without leaves would seat twelve people comfortably, a buffet at least ten feet long and surmounted by a mirror reflecting an enormous collection of silver, two cabinets glimmering with endless dozens of glasses and china pieces, completely overwhelmed her.
Thereafter, the inspection of the house acquired a nightmare quality. The morning room, in red and blue, only vaguely disturbed her. She must inspect a mighty kitchen, and allow the cook and two housemaids to be introduced. She smiled at them with a glassy graciousness, her face gray with exhaustion and misery. She did not remember their names. Nor did she remember, that day, the visit to the attached conservatory, the gleaming ballroom, the walking through a labyrinth of halls. Fires and flickering chandeliers merged in one mass before her. Slowly and heavily, she mounted the giant black-and-white marble staircase which rose from the reception hall to the upper regions. She must have visited the many guest-rooms and the dressing-rooms, all furnished with a crass magnificence. She did not remember. She discovered that William was to have his own bedroom and dressing-room, and she, also. This stirred nothing in her. She did look at her apartments with a last flicker of interest, for here she would sleep every night, in this bed she would have her children, and here she would die.
Then, she was aroused to pity and love again. William, probably remembering her own muted tastes, had insisted that the ornate decorations of the other rooms should here be more subdued. The walls had been covered with pale yellow satin, in which a soft gray design had been woven. The curtains were of Cluny lace, the draperies of silver brocade. A white marble fireplace had been installed, and here was the most comfortable fire of all. Two French girandoles embellished the mantelpiece, while from the ceiling hung a chandelier of yellow crystal. A fine Aubusson covered the floor. The canopied bed dripped with delicate Brussels lace. The furniture was not mammoth; rather, it was somewhat small and happily sparse, painted old white and tipped with gold. A beautiful Venetian mirror hung over the dresser, and a chaise-longue in soft blue stood near a window. Ursula caught a glimpse of a small and dainty desk, a cabinet of objets d’art, a bookcase waiting for her own books.
“Dear William!” she exclaimed, “it is so beautiful, so lovely!” She caught his hand and held it tightly. “It is the most delightful room in the whole house!”
William had begun to smile; his fingers had closed upon hers. Then, as he grasped the import of her last words, he removed his hand and glowered down at her. “You have no high opinion of the others?”
A tremendous weariness flowed over Ursula. She said: “You do not understand. This is my room, my bedroom, my very own. I shall spend much time here. Besides, I can see that you thought it all out so carefully; you chose what you believed, and knew, I would like.”
He was pacified. He beamed about the room, rocking back on his heels. “Everything in the house is priceless,” he said. “Almost everything is imported from France or Italy. There is a fortune in this house,” he added, dropping his voice to the timbre of reverence.
Ursula, tired and now completely disoriented, had a series of wild and incoherent thoughts. Yes, there was a fortune in this house. Was it a mortgaged fortune? She had no way of knowing, and she dared not ask. After all, she thought hysterically, I can always be a schoolmistress if necessary. There is always my own house! At least, there is no mortgage on that, and all the furniture is paid for! And I still have my ten thousand dollars!
As if in a dream, she saw Mrs. Templeton lurking in the doorway, a pious smile of pride and servility on her long dun-colored
face. Mrs. Templeton suddenly loomed beside her. She and William were holding her. She heard their voices from a far distance. She did not remember much after that, but when she opened her eyes again she was in bed, the golden bed with the Brussels lace and the silken quilts.
CHAPTER XIX
By the end of January, Dr. Banks was reluctantly forced to consider twins. Nothing else could explain Ursula’s condition. William, when discreetly informed of this, was incredulous though delighted.
The end of February found Ursula lethargic and ill. Not even little Oliver, with his affectionate face, wise eyes and sprightly manner, could draw her long from an apathetic seclusion. When Oliver slept during the day, Lucy sat beside her bed, sturdily knitting or sewing or embroidering. She was routed only when Mrs. Templeton came down from her afternoon nap. But, after dinner, Mrs. Templeton was not permitted to return to Ursula’s bedroom.
“I don’t know what you have against the woman,” William complained gloomily. “I can’t be with you every night,” he went on, trying to hide his secret pleasure when Ursula cried that in the evenings she wanted to see him and him only. “I have to be away, a few days at a time. I don’t like to leave you alone.”
“The bell-rope is right at my hand,” pleaded Ursula. She wanted him so desperately, these painful sick days. They could hold no conversation together which interested either. His world and hers lay inexorably apart. Yet she loved him, and never so intensely as she did now. It was comfort and strength to have him beside her, while she lay lapped in the cold wavelets of fear and dread.
There was no doubt in William’s mind that the children would be boys. Girls were not to be considered in the least. Girls might come later. These children would be male. So determined, so sure, was he, that Ursula also came to accept the coming babies as of the masculine sex. They discussed names.