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Ernest Poole - His Second Wife

E >> Ernest Poole >> His Second Wife



HIS SECOND WIFE

BY

ERNEST POOLE

TO M.A.



HIS SECOND WIFE

CHAPTER I

On a train speeding toward New York, in one of the parlour cars two
young women sat facing each other, talking and smiling, deeply absorbed.
They took little apparent notice of any one else in the car, but most of
the people near them kept throwing curious glances their way.

These glances differed vastly, as did the thoughts behind them. A tall,
genial Westerner, who looked as though he had come from a ranch, smiled
frankly and hungrily on the pair and told himself with emphasis, "Those
two girls are fifty-fifty. I'd like a dozen of each brand." And a slim
college boy with fresh, eager eyes kept darting quick looks from time to
time at the older of the two, the blonde. He asked himself confusedly,
"How'd I start in with a woman like her?" And exciting pictures rose in
his mind. In the meantime an elderly lady, with a sharp, inquisitive
air, had put down the ages of the girls at twenty-two and thirty.

"They're sisters," she decided, but then she nearly changed her mind.
They were such contrasted types. The blonde gave an appearance of sleek
and moneyed elegance, with carefully undulated hair, a rounded bust, and
pretty features smooth and plump, with a retrousse nose and rich, full
lips, and a manner of easy assurance. The brunette was younger and less
developed, slim and lithe, her curling black hair rebellious, her
features more clean-cut and clear, with wide, eager lips and warm brown
eyes set wide apart.

"Nevertheless, they are sisters," the little lady firmly concluded.
"The family resemblance is quite unmistakable." And frowning in
perplexity, "But if they are sisters," she went on, "why is only one in
mourning?" She looked at the younger of the two, who was simply dressed
in black; and then at the blonde, whose sable cloak put back from her
shoulders revealed a stylish travelling suit. "And why is one rich and
the other poor?"

Meanwhile a young woman nearby, with a fat, discontented face, regarded
the blonde with envy and thought:

"She's an actress with her maid. Why can't Harry allow me a maid, a
real clever one like that? Men see these actresses on the stage and get
to expecting things from their wives--without being willing to pay for
it! Think what that girl could make of me!"

A quiet, able-looking woman sitting just across the aisle, who travelled
for a clothing store, was watching the "maid," the brunette, and was
thinking, "She makes her clothes herself. She has been the beauty of
her small town. She's smart, too, and original. That collar was a
clever idea--and that fichu of lace. A pity she's in mourning."

But the large fat man behind the two girls had little thought for the
brunette. His heavy eyes, quite motionless, were upon the older girl.
He took in her sensuous shoulders, the rounded contour of her bust, her
glossy coiffure, the small, fine hairs at the back of her neck. And he
thought, "Yes, she has been loved pretty well." She was talking, and he
could just hear her voice, soft and provocative, like the little gloved
hand on her chair. By her eyes, which were of a violet hue, he saw she
was aware of his gaze. Something gleamed in them that sent a thrill far
down into his sluggish soul.

In the meantime a kindly old lady, whose eyes were fixed on the
brunette, noticed how hard she was listening, noticed the fresh
expectancy in her parted lips and clear brown eyes, and asked with a
touch of sadness:

"I wonder what's waiting for you in New York? I'm afraid I don't like
this companion of yours. And you're so very young, my dear, and eager
and gay. And you are to be so beautiful."


And while all these conjectures were being made about them both, the
brunette was wrapt in her own inner fancies, vivid and exciting.
Listening to her sister, swift thoughts and expectations mingled with
the memories of the life behind her. As she stared out of the window,
fields and woods and houses kept whirling back out of her view--and so
it was with her memories. It was hard to keep hold of any one.

She had lived with her father, a lonely old man in a small, quiet town
in Ohio, down in the lower part of the State. He was dead, and she was
going to live with her married sister in New York. He was dead and his
daughter was not sad, though she'd been his only close companion and had
loved him tenderly. And this brought a guilty feeling now, which she
fought down by telling herself there had been little sadness in his
death. She pictured her father making his speech at the unveiling of
the Monument. How happy and proud he had appeared. For half his life
old Colonel Knight had exhorted his fellow townsmen and painted dark the
shame of their town: "The only county seat in Ohio with no soldiers'
monument, sir!" He had held countless meetings, he had gone begging to
his neighbours, and every dollar he himself could save had gone into
that dream of his. At last he had triumphed; and after all the
excitement of his final victory, the old soldier had made his speech,
and died.

Around him and the monument and the old frame house on River Street, the
lazy, shallow river, the high school near the court house, Demley's
Tavern across the square, the line of shops on either side, the new
"movie" theatre of pink tile, and the old yellow church on the
corner--the pictures of her life trooped by, the pictures of her last
few years--with the miracle, the discovery that she herself, Ethel
Knight, who had always been considered "plain," was slowly now
developing into a beautiful woman. That brought memories which
thrilled--various faces of men, young and old, looks and glances, words
overheard, and countless small attentions. But these came in mere
fragments, rising only to be whirled back again into the past, as the
train sped on toward the city.

She was going to live in New York with her married sister, Amy Lanier.
And from looking out of the car window, Ethel would turn quickly, throw
a swift glance at her sister and smile. Amy seemed quite wonderful--Amy
with her elegance, her worldly assurance, her smiling good-humour and
knowledge of "life," her apparent content, her sense of well being, of
being a joy to look at and love; Amy who had an adoring husband, Amy who
spent money like water, Amy with dash and beauty and style.

"New York just fairly shimmering in everything she wears!" thought
Ethel.

Amy's sable cloak was long. She had worn it at the funeral, with a
black skirt and a heavy veil. But the veil she had put into her bag as
soon as they had left the town, and the cloak thrown back revealed rich
colours, the glitter and glint of a diamond brooch; and she wore a small
blue feathered hat which threw out changing colours in the play of light
in the car. There was to be no more mourning. Amy didn't believe in
that; she was good-humouredly arguing her young sister out of it. And
Ethel, smiling back at her, saw how sensible it was. She felt death and
sadness slipping away, and the life in the city opening.

Since Amy's marriage five years ago, Ethel had only seen her twice--once
when Amy had come home, appearing resplendent with Joe her husband in a
large new touring car, and had sent a wave of excitement through the
quiet little town; and again when she had asked Ethel to visit her for a
week in New York. That had been a glamourous week, but it had not been
repeated. For nearly three years they had not met. In that time had
come the change in Ethel's own appearance. And glancing now at Amy, she
read in those clear, smiling eyes that Amy was relieved and pleased and
surprised at the striking beauty which had come to her young sister.
There was even a tone of expectancy in Amy's talk of their life in New
York.

"She thinks I'll get on finely!" This exciting thought kept rising
repeatedly in Ethel's mind. And with it came the sturdy resolve, "I
mustn't be too humble now, or too dependent on her. I must show her I'm
somebody all by myself--that I won't be a burden on her hands. I've got
to make a life of my own--find work perhaps--or marry!"

Then all such resolutions would merge in the images vivid and new, which
kept rising in her mind, of the life she would have in the city.

She had a good voice. Old Mr. Riggs, the organist in the yellow church
at home, had planted that idea deep in her mind. If only her voice
could be brought out! She hadn't much money for teachers, but how she
would work if she got a chance! In her heart she knew she had no great
voice, but gaily she let her fancy go and pictured herself on the stage.
. . . This image passed and was replaced by a platform in an immense
auditorium crowded with cheering women and girls. Suffrage banners were
all about, and she was speaking to the crowd. Her voice rang clear and
resolute. . . . There were other dreams and pictures--of dances in
New York cafes, of theatre parties, trips to Paris, hosts of friends.
And the vague thought flashed into her mind:

"What possibilities for life--in me--me--Ethel Knight!"

She went on listening, building. She took in fragments of what Amy said
and mingled them with things she had read and pictures she'd seen in
books, magazines and Sunday papers; or with things that she had heard in
the long discussions in her club of high school girls, over suffrage,
marriage, Bernard Shaw. She thought of the opera, concerts, plays. She
saw Fifth Avenue at night agleam with countless motors, torrents of
tempestuous life--and numberless shop windows, hats and dainty gowns and
shoes. She pictured herself at dinners and balls, men noticing her
everywhere. "As they are doing now," she thought, "this very minute in
this car!" Out of all the pictures rose one of a church wedding. And
then this picture faded, and changed to that of her father's funeral in
the old frame yellow church. She frowned, her brown eyes saddened and
suddenly grew wet with a deep homesick tenderness. But in a few moments
she smiled again; once more her pulse-beat quickened. For Amy was
talking good-humouredly. And Ethel's eyes, now curious, now plainly
thrilled, now quizzical, amused and pleased, kept watching her, and she
asked herself:

"Shall I ever be like that?"

The picture she had of her sister grew each moment more warm and
desirable. Eagerly she explored it by the quick questions she threw
out.

They were coming into the city now, in a dusk rich with twinkling
lights. In the car the passengers were stirring. Amy stood up to be
brushed--sleek and alluring, worldly wise--and the fat man in the chair
behind her opened wide his heavy eyes. Then Ethel stood up--and in the
poise of her figure, slim and lithe with its lovely lines, in her
carriage, in her slender neck, in her dark face with its features clear,
her lips a little parted, and in the look in her brown eyes--there was
something which made glances turn from all down the softly lighted car.
There was even a brief silence. And Ethel drew a sudden breath, as from
close behind her the soft voice of the darky porter drawled:

"Yes'm--yes'm--dis is New York. We's comin' right into de station now."



CHAPTER II

"Well, Ethel my love, we're here at last! . . . It must be after
midnight. I wonder when I'll get to sleep? . . . Not that I care
especially. What a quaint habit sleeping is."

She had formed the habit long ago of holding these inner conversations.
Her father had been a silent man, and often as she faced him at meals
Ethel had talked and talked to herself in quite as animated a way as
though she were saying it all aloud. Now she sat up suddenly in bed and
turned on the light just over her head, and amiably she surveyed her
room. It was a pretty, fresh, little room with flowered curtains, a
blue rug, a luxurious chaise longue and a small French dressing table.
Very cheerful, very empty. "It looks," she decided, "just like the bed
feels. I'm the first fellow who has been here.

"No," she corrected herself in a moment, "that's very ignorant of you,
my dear. This is a New York apartment, you know. All kinds of other
fellows have been in this room ahead of me; and they've lain awake by
the hour here, planning how to get married or divorced, or getting ready
to write a great book or make a million dollars, or sing in grand opera
or murder their child. All the things in the newspapers have been
arranged in this spot where I lie! Now I'll turn out the light," she
added, "and sink quietly to rest!"

But in the dark she lay listening to the strange low hub-hub from
outside. And it made her think of what she had seen an hour before,
when at the open window, resting her elbows on the sill, she had begun
to make her acquaintance with her backyard--a yawning abyss of brick and
cement which went down and down to cement below, and up and up to a
strip of blue sky, and to right and to left went stretching away with
rows and rows of windows. And now as the murmurs and quick low cries,
piano music, a baritone voice and a sudden burst of laughter, came to
her ears, she gravely named her neighbours:

"Wives and husbands, divorcees, secret lovers, grafters, burglars,
suffragettes, actresses and anarchists and millionaires and poor young
things--all spending a quiet evening at home. And that's so sensible in
you all. You'll need your strength for tomorrow."

From the city far and near came numberless other voices. From street
cars, motors and the L, from boats far off on the river this calm and
still October night, from Broadway and from Harlem and the many teeming
slums, came the vast murmuring voice of the town. And she thought:

"I'm becoming a part of all this!" She listened a little and added, "It
breathes, like something quite alive." She smiled and added approvingly,
"Quite right, my dear, just breathe right on. But don't go and breathe
as though you were sleeping. Keep me company tonight."

Suddenly she remembered how in their taxi from the train, as they had
sped up Park Avenue all agleam with its cold blue lights and she had
chattered gaily of anything that came into her head, twice she had
caught in her sister's eyes that glimmer of expectancy. "Amy feels sure
I will be a success!" Ethel thrilled at the recollection, and thought,
"Oh, yes, you're quite a wag, my love; and as soon as you get over being
so young you'll probably make a name for yourself. No dinner or
suffrage party will ever again be quite complete without your droll dry
humour. . . . I suppose I ought to be going to sleep!"

And she yawned excitedly. From somewhere far in the distance there came
to her ears the dull bellowing roar of an ocean liner leaving dock at
one o'clock to start the long journey over the sea.

"I'm going to Paris, too!" she resolved. Her fancy travelled over the
ocean and roamed madly for awhile, with the help of many photographs
which she had seen in magazines. But she wearied of that and soon
returned.

"Well, what do I think of Amy's home?"

She went over in her memory her eager inspection of the apartment. The
rooms had been dark when they arrived; for they had not been expected so
soon, and a somewhat dishevelled Irish maid had opened the door and let
them in. With a quick annoyed exclamation, Amy had switched on the
lights; and room after room as it leaped into view had appeared to
Ethel's eyes like parts of a suite in some rich hotel. And although as
her sister went about moving chairs a bit this way and that and putting
things on the table to rights, it took on a little more the semblance of
somebody's home, still that first impression had remained in Ethel's
mind.

"People have sat in this room," she had thought, "but they haven't lived
here. They haven't sewed or read aloud or talked things out and out and
out."

To her sister she had been loud in her praise. What a perfectly lovely
room it was, what a wonderful lounge with the table behind it, and what
lamps, what a heavenly rug and how well it went with the curtains! When
Amy lighted the gas logs, Ethel had drawn a quick breath of dismay. But
then she had sharply told herself:

"This isn't an old frame house in Ohio, this is a gay little place in
New York! You're going to love it, living here! And you're pretty much
of a kid, my dear, to be criticizing like an old maid!" She had gone
into Amy's room, and there her mood had quickly changed. For the
curtains and the deep soft rug, the broad low dressing table with its
drop-light shaded in chintz, the curious gold lacquered chair, the
powder boxes, brushes, trays, the faint delicious perfume of the place;
and back in the shadow, softly curtained, the low wide luxurious
bed--had given to her the feeling that this room at least was personal.
Here two people had really lived--a man and a woman. There had come
into Ethel's brown eyes a mingling of confused delight and awkward
admiration. And her sister, with a quick look and a smile, had lost the
slightly ruffled expression her face had worn in the other rooms. She
had regained her ascendancy.

It had not been until Ethel was left in her own small room adjoining,
that with an exclamation of remembrance and surprise she had stopped
undressing, opened her door and listened in the silence. "How perfectly
uncanny!" Frowning a moment, puzzled, her eye had gone to the only other
room in the apartment, down at the end of the narrow hall. The door had
been closed. She had stolen to it and listened, but at first she had
not heard a sound. Then she had given a slight start, had knocked
softly and asked, "May I come in?" A woman's voice with a hostile note
had replied, "Yes, ma'am." She had entered. And a moment later, down
on her knees before a grave little girl of two who sat at a tiny table
soberly having her supper, Ethel had cried:

"Oh, you adorable baby!"

For a time she had tried to make friends with the child, but the voice
of the nurse had soon cut in. And in the motherly Scotch face Ethel had
detected again a feeling of hostility. "What for?" she had asked. And
the answer had flashed into her mind. "She's angry because Amy hasn't
been in to see Susette." And Ethel had frowned. "It's funny. If I had
been away three days--"

She had gone back to her own room and began slowly to take off her
things. And a few minutes after that, she had heard a gruff kindly
voice, a man's heavy tread and a glad little cry from Amy's room.

"Joe has come home," she had told herself. "I wonder how he and I will
get on."

And she had met him a little later with no slight uneasiness. But this
had been at once dispelled. Rather tall and full of figure, with thick
curling hair and close-cut moustache, Joe Lanier at thirty-five still
gave to his young sister-in-law the impression of kindly friendliness
she had had from him some years before. There was nothing to be afraid
of in Joe. But she had noticed the change in his face, the slightly
tightened harassed expression. And she had thought:

"You poor man. How hard you have been working."

And yet she could not say he looked tired, for at dinner his talk had
been almost boyish in its welcoming good humour. Later he had drawn her
aside and had said with a touch of awkwardness:

"No use in talking about it, of course. I just want you to know I'm so
glad you're here." She had clutched his hand:

"That's nice of you, Joe." And then she had turned from him, and with a
sudden quiver inside she had added quite inaudibly: "Oh, Dad, dearest!
I'm so homesick! Just this minute--if I could be back!"

But she had liked Joe that evening.

She remembered the hungry light in his eyes. He and Amy had soon gone
to their room. And as Ethel thought about them now, lying here alone in
the dark she felt again that vague delight and confused expectancy.

"How much of all this is coming to me? . . Everything, I guess, but
sleep!"

A wisp of her hair fell on her nose, and she blew it back with a
vicious, "Pfew!"



CHAPTER III

Her first month in town was a season of shopping and of warm
anticipations--and then came a sudden crash. Afterward it was hard to
remember. For tragedy entered into these rooms, and it was not easy to
look back and see them clearly as they had been. That first month
became confused, the memories uneven; in some spots clear and vivid, in
others hazy and unreal.

"I want you to be gay, my dear," Amy told her at the start. "You've
been through such a lonely time. And what earthly good will it do poor
Dad to have you go about in black? You're here now and you've got to
make friends and a place for yourself. If he were alive I know he'd
agree. He'd want you to have every chance."

So they started in to shop. And though Ethel had her memories, her
moods of homesick longing for the old soldier who was gone, these soon
became less frequent. There was little time to be lonely or sad.

Amy herself felt new youth these days. Relieved of the first uneasiness
with which she had gone to Ohio to bring her young sister to New York,
surprised and delighted at finding how the awkward girl she had known
had developed since the last time they had met, Amy now took Ethel about
to get her "clothes fit to be seen in." And as with intent little
glances she kept studying "Ethel's type" in order to set off her charms,
the slightly bored expression, the look of disillusionment left Amy's
pretty countenance. For Ethel's freshness had given to Amy new zest and
belief in her own life, in its purpose and importance. To get Ethel
clothes, to show her about, to find her friends, to give her a gay
winter in town and later to make a good match for her--these aims loomed
large in Amy's mind. She felt her own youth returning, and she
prolonged this period. She wanted Ethel all to herself. She even shut
her husband out.

"You can rest up a bit," she told him, "for what's coming later on." And
Joe, with a good-natured groan at the prospect of late hours ahead, made
the most of the rest allowed to him.

Each morning the two sisters fared forth in a taxi. And Amy began to
reveal to her sister the dazzling world of shops in New York: shops
large and small, American, French and English, shops for gowns and hats
and shoes, and furs and gloves and corsets. At numberless counters they
studied and counselled, and lunching at Sherry's they shopped on. And
the shimmer and sheen of pretty things made life a glamourous mirage, in
which Ethel could feel herself rapidly becoming a New Yorker, gaining
assurance day by day, feeling "her type" emerge in the glass where she
studied herself with impatient delight.

There were little reminders now and then of what she had left behind
her. One day in a department store, as they stood before a counter
looking at silk stockings, all at once to Ethel's ears came the deep
tones of an organ, and turning with a low cry of surprise she looked
over the bustling throngs of women to an organ loft above, where a girl
was singing a solo in a high sweet soprano voice. In a flash to Ethel's
mind there came a vivid picture of the old yellow church at home. And
with a queer expression looking about her at the crowds, she exclaimed,
"How funny!" She was again reminded of church when one afternoon in a
large darkened chamber she sat with scores of women whose eyes were
fixed as though in devotion upon a softly lighted stage where "models"
kept appearing. What lovely figures some of them had. Others rather
took her breath, and gave her the feeling she'd had before in her
sister's bedroom. But then as her eye was caught again by the rapt
faces all about, she chuckled to herself and thought, "There ought to be
candles and incense here!"

She was appalled at the prices. And as the exciting days wore on,
uneasily in her room at night she would sit down with pencil and paper
and ask, "How much did I spend today?" Her father had left her nothing
but the shabby old frame house. This she had sold to a friend of his,
and the small fund thus secured she had resolved to husband.

"Oh, Ethel, go slow, you little fool. This is every penny you have in
the world."

But the adorable things she saw, and the growing hunger she felt as she
began to notice with a more discerning eye the women in shops and on the
streets--just why they were so dashing and how they got this and that
effect--all swept aside her caution, the easier because of the fact that
everything she bought was charged.

One evening in a large cafe she sat watching Amy who was dancing with
her husband. It was at the time when the new style dances were just
coming into vogue. In Ohio they had been only a myth. But Amy was a
beautiful dancer; and watching her now, Ethel reflected, "She expects me
to be like that. If I'm not, she'll be disappointed, ashamed. And why
shouldn't I be! What do you ever get in this world if you're always
saving every cent? You miss your chance and then it's too late. I'll
be meeting her friends in a few weeks more. I've simply got to hurry!"
And with Amy's dancing teacher she arranged for lessons--at a price that
made her gasp. But the lessons were a decided success.

"You've a wonderful figure for dancing," the teacher said confidingly,
"and a sense for rhythm that most of these women haven't any idea of."
He smiled down at her and she fairly beamed.

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