Fidelia/Chapter 24
OF course Alice had no knowledge of any of this. To her, the fourth year of the marriage of David and Fidelia appeared to proceed as had the others; and to Alice, this year brought little change. What there was seemed to be for the better. Her friends said: "Alice grows lovelier every year and her tragic experience with that boy whom she did everything for, has only brought out the real quality of her character."
She was becoming lovelier with the fresh, young maturity of her twenty-five years. She was as slender as when she was in college; oh, she looked to her figure! She was slight in the waist, her limbs were smooth and light but little changes came, all to make her more attractive. Her neck rounded beautifully and her bosom was fuller. She walked a great deal and swam in summer and in winter exercised under the direction of a dancer.
When people praised her beauty of character, she frequently wondered what they would say if they knew what feelings sometimes lay under her calmness, what instincts seized her, what passions played in her dreams. Alice came to understand perfectly how a woman, who has been robbed of her love by another, may do wild, desperate things.
Once to have been loved by the boy you loved and then to see another girl take him from you! Once to have felt the kisses of love, the embrace of his arms, his warmth, his stir, his wish for you above all others in the world; to long for him and to feel his longing to mate with you, to give yourself and receive him in return; to form no plan, to know no hope or dream apart from him! Then to have it all torn from you, never to feel again his lips on yours, his arms about you but to know he is gone to another, giving all to her, leaving you unwanted and useless.
Her feeling of uselessness was something which she had not foreseen, when she lost David; it was something beyond her expected loneliness and hurt. It was a nullifying of her own nature which was to bear children; it was a forbidding of her very body to perform its natural purpose. It was almost incredible that Fidelia could have robbed her of so much.
If Alice had been able to foresee this, she never would have let David go so easily, she thought. It became amazing to her that she had not made more struggle. She did not know how she might have held him but she accused herself for not having done more, more. She thought of herself as having been unable to believe that Fidelia could so quickly destroy all that had grown between David and herself through three and a half years. Now Alice denied that Fidelia had destroyed it; certainly Fidelia had not destroyed it in Alice; and what lived in her must live, a little, in David, too; and if it lived, it must have power again to grow in him.
But suppose Fidelia bore David children! Alice hardly could let herself think of that; yet it had to enter every reckoning. "Is Fidelia bearing a child?" was what she meant when she asked David, "How is Fidelia?" at the time she first met him after his marriage; it was what stirred her whenever she caught sight of David or Fidelia later and whenever any one spoke to her of them. Now a child must end every hope for Alice; but the months and the years, three of them, were gone and Fidelia remained childless; and this—so Alice began to believe could not be from choice. She became certain that Fidelia, in spite of her splendid body, was barren.
So Alice had her moments of feeling triumph over Fidelia; Alice had complete faith that she, though weaker than Fidelia, could bear. Never had she doubted that; nor had David. How confidently had David and she made their plans together on the certainty of children! She thought of him as having transferred her plan and his to Fidelia and himself and she was sure that he must, therefore, be disappointed. She thought of talks which he and she had together, when he was in his moods of self-reproach and examination, and she thought, "He must miss me, sometimes."
That telephone call, when he rang her number from the railroad station, proved to her that he did. Of course she knew that he had not intentionally called her, but instinctively he had! What had he told her? "Father was just here." That meant he was having trouble with his father again; probably it was more serious trouble than usual and, in his trouble, he had needed her.
It was a small incident to build upon but it be came much to her who lived within a mile of David and who yet was cut off for months at a time from even a chance glimpse of him in a car or upon the street and who seldom met any one who knew him. For Alice had been avoiding the university and the university people who lived near, although she kept up correspondence with girls who lived out of town and especially with Myra, who was at her home in Rock Island.
Through Myra, she heard about Lan, who had finished his medical course and was an interne in a hospital in Baltimore; but Lan knew nothing about David in these days and, conversely, it was probable that David knew nothing about Lan, not even that Myra and Lan at last were to be married, next month. The letter from Myra, which told Alice the day, recalled almost unbearably the plan which the four of them—David and Lan, and Myra and she—had made long ago when David and she would first have Lan and Myra for best man and maid of honor and then David would be Lan's best man and she, Myra's matron of honor.
The letter came in the week when college was opening again and when the "active" Tau Gamma chapter—the girls in college—were telephoning to Alice to please come up and help "rush"; for with the start of the new term and the appearance of a new class on the campus, every fraternity and every sorority was in combat against each other to pledge to itself the best of the freshman girls or boys.
This combat was so keen and so serious that it enlisted not only the active members of each chapter but it called upon the popular alumnae, too. Tau Gamma always had appealed to Alice for help and for three years she had excused herself; but now she promised to "come up" for she determined to cease avoiding the campus where, in September of happier years, David used to meet her.
So she drove again to the edge of the shaded road up to the old University; she walked under the arch of trees with the leaves turning brown and fluttering down as they used to do when they marked for her the beginning of another long, delightful epoch of close companionship with David in this pleasant, set-apart world of the university. She went through the familiar halls and to chapel; she returned to Willard Hall, filled with girls, mostly strange, yet all very like girls she used to know. She went past the fraternity houses and the boarding-houses; here was the Delta Alpha house just as it used to be.
She gazed up at it, seeking a glimpse of the window which had been David's. Boys were all about and men of the younger alumni. David might be there but Alice did not see him, though she recognized a couple of men of her time. Here was Mrs. Fansler's, filled with girls again. Mrs. Fansler's house had been newly painted, it looked fresher and more cheerful. A girl had just come to Mrs. Fansler's whom Tau Gamma wanted to know; and Alice had agreed to go with one of the active Tau Gammas to call on this girl, for neither of them had the slightest idea that Fidelia would be at Mrs. Fansler's to-day. No one knew that Fidelia had come up to college for the Tau Gammas never called on her for help; but there she was in the parlor with Mrs. Fansler.
It was Alice's first meeting with Fidelia in a room since they went from their last class-room in college; it was the first encounter in which she could not nod and merely give a glance and pass on. Alice and her companion came in upon Fidelia and Mrs. Fansler, seated. Immediately Mrs. Fansler got up and was flustered; Fidelia arose but she was not flustered. She said: "Why, Alice!" and she offered Alice her hands.
Alice did not take them. Whether or not she should touch Fidelia's offered hand, Alice hardly considered; for she could not. The old seizure of her helplessness before Fidelia—that helplessness which started with her fear when she first saw Fidelia on the evening of her arrival in Myra's room, which was doubled on the first morning in class when she saw Fidelia sitting in the sun and which overwhelmed her finally at the Tau Gamma dance—that possessed Alice again.
"How do you do, Fidelia?" she said; then she spoke to Mrs. Fansler and, becoming aware that Mrs. Fansler was urging her to sit down, she did so. Mrs. Fansler introduced Fidelia and the undergraduate girl with Alice. "Mrs. Herrick," Mrs. Fansler said.
Alice saw the girl stare in admiration at Fidelia; and no wonder; for Fidelia was the same as ever. Gone from Alice was her poor triumph over Fidelia because she had no child; gone from Alice was her comfort from that telephone call and her built-up belief that David needed her.
Fidelia asked: "You're helping rush?"
"Yes," Alice answered.
"There's a fine class entering, I think," said Fidelia.
"Some very desirable girls," agreed Mrs. Fansler, emphatically.
Alice said, not half thinking of the effect: "You remember Myra Taine, Mrs. Fansler?"
"Certainly I do."
"She's being married next month," Alice said and looked at Fidelia; and she knew that Fidelia did not know about Myra and Lan. Immediately Fidelia confessed it. "To Lan Blake?" she asked.
"Lan," said Alice and no longer could look at Fidelia, "He's in Baltimore now, interne at a hospital where his uncle operates, Mrs. Fansler. He's going to Serbia with a Medical unit from Baltimore, as soon as it is organized. But Myra and he'll be married first."
"I'm glad of that," said Fidelia; then she kissed Mrs. Fansler; she spoke to the girl whom she had just met; then added to Alice, "David will be glad to know that. I'll tell him." And, in a moment, she went.
Fidelia journeyed to Chicago feeling a reluctance to tell David which Alice never suspected; for knowing nothing of the step which David's father recently had taken, Alice had no idea of the effect which the report about Lan would have upon David; but Fidelia knew what to expect.
She had an errand in the city which was not at David's office or in the stores or at a tea room or theater or any other place of usual resort. She went directly from the train to the post office where she inquired at the general delivery window for mail for Fidelia Netley. There was nothing for her, though there ought to be; for there had been plenty of time for Fidelia's letter to Mrs. Hartley Bolton to reach Menton, Oregon, and for a reply to reach Chicago.
On this day, as upon others when she inquired for a letter and received none, Fidelia felt relieved, at first; but the relief did not last. She went to a film theater for the rest of the afternoon, leaving in time to be sure to be at the hotel when David got in.
He and she were alone while dressing before dinner and after dinner they were alone again but it was not until late, when they had returned to their suite and were preparing for bed that Fidelia said: "I didn't tell you, I was in Evanston to-day. I was at the college, David."
"You were? That's good."
"Yes," said Fidelia. "Rushing's started. Tau Gamma is after a lot of girls."
"Were you," asked David and stopped, "were you helping Tau Gamma rush?"
"No; they don't ask me," Fidelia replied. "I was up seeing Mrs. Fansler. She often phones me, you know; she's just had her house done over, inside and out; she wanted me to see it."
"Yes," said David and waited, sure that something else was coming.
"It's gray and green outside now. It looks awfully much better."
"Yes."
"The woodwork's white now. I saw Alice there, David. She was rushing for Tau Gamma; there's a girl at Mrs. Fansler's they want."
"Yes," said David again with pulses hastening.
"Alice told me about Myra and Lan."
"What?" asked David, his pulse suddenly halting. "You mean they've married! "And he might have said aloud, "And I didn't know."
"No; they're just going to. Lan's an interne in a hospital in Baltimore where his uncle is. He's going—Lan, I mean, David—to Serbia with a Baltimore medical unit; but he's going to marry Myra, first. I told Alice I'd tell you."
"You mean she asked you to?"
"No; but I told her I would."
"Alice," said David, "she'd just heard?"
"No; I don't think so."
Fidelia continued undressing but David did not; he went from the bedroom into the living room and when he returned, after a couple of minutes, it was to put on the collar and tie and coat which he had taken off.
"I'm going out for a walk, Fidel," he said.
She offered in her willing way: "Shall I dress and go with you?"
He said: "You're ready for bed."
"Yes," she accepted his refusal without offense. She came to him and touched his cheek with her palm. "You care a lot about Lan, don't you, dear?"
David cried, "I roomed with that fellow for four years! He's the fairest, squarest little fellow—" He broke off. He jerked away from Fidelia's hand but he seized her hand before she could lower it and he kissed it. "Don't you mind for me, Fidel!"
Fidelia got into bed after David went out but she had no idea of seeking sleep. She thought of David and of his mother, who was so thin and not so strong this year yet who was getting along, Heaven knew how, without David's money. Fidelia thought of her warm, friendly gray eyes and her sweet smile and her very thin and very worn hands and she thought of David's money deposited for her but lying, untouched, in the bank. And Fidelia thought also of Lan, the plain, square, likable boy who was the first person she had met on coming to Northwestern; she had always liked Lan and at first he had liked her. But now, because of her, he had hurt David.
Of course the hurt, itself, would not have been so sharp but it flicked upon the raw of the hurt before.
When David came in, she lay without moving; and he did not disturb her. Long after he was in bed, and after he had ceased to shift about and turn, Fidelia lay awake.
A star was bright in the square of sky which she could see through the open window; it was near to the course of the moon and strange to the constellation in which it shone to-night. Fidelia knew therefore that it was a planet; she marked it well in her mind and the next day she inquired what planet it was and she learned, as she expected, that it was Saturn, again, the wandering star of misfortune which had ruled the sky on the night David and she were adrift on the floe.