Flight, page 14
This feeling was always deepest as they walked out in the evening. During the latter part of September and the early part of October there had been many crisply cold nights. Dying October and budding November brought that year balmy nights and pleasant days that were reminiscent of late summer. Through the darkened streets they strolled arm in arm. Here and there were street lamps which shed little light more than to a radius of fifteen or twenty feet. Back in tidy little yards sat squat little houses or imposing two-storied ones with an occasional light peeping from them in friendly manner. Up above, a moon, slender and graceful like a fragile, spreading horseshoe of coruscation, or full-bodied and vigorous in its yellowish brilliance. Mimi always liked the new moon best—it stirred her by its slender grace. But Carl preferred the full ones—“no wonder the Greeks and Romans gave a ‘corona’ as a badge of victory—those old boys were poets, and real ones—they saw that there could be no greater beauty and splendour than in an award resembling that band of light up yonder.”
It was not long before they were accepted as “going together.” With the ready forgiveness accorded a man who has transgressed against local codes of conduct, Carl’s derelictions of the past were forgotten, or, if not forgotten, thrust into that indefinite realm of things not to be mentioned again save in most intimate conversations. It was assumed that, now Jean was dead, Mimi would soon be marrying, and the assumption more or less naturally followed that she would marry Carl.
Between them, however, there was no thought of to-morrow nor, for some inexplicable reason, did there come to their ears the now friendly discussions regarding what they would do which were going on. They floated along happily on the stream of their new-found contentment, as oblivious of the future as two bits of wood held together by a string on the bosom of some placid pond. On rainy nights or evenings when Mimi did not feel like walking or going to a moving, picture show, they sat at home, Carl talking or reading some bit of verse, or some story he had come across, while Mimi sat and sewed or just sat. Carl’s restlessness had almost left him, he seemed more contented, he now actually took a deeper interest in the work his father wanted him to do. More and more there entered his conversations his plans, his hopes, his eagerness to please his father. Mimi learned that even under his former discontent there was a deep respect and a sort of affection that Carl had for his father. She saw that the older man’s will worked with great effect upon that of his son—too much so, she feared …
Early in November she found that this was even more true than she had suspected. One morning she was awakened by a dream. In it she saw Jean again, standing beside her bed, his eyes sad, his finger pointing accusingly at her. No word came from his lips, but his face had on it an expression she had never seen in life, one that made her shrink from it into the warm, comforting embrace of the bed-clothes. She lay awake and then fell again into troubled slumber.
When she awoke she felt a violent nausea and a dizziness that made her glad to lie down again. She called Mrs. Daquin, who listened to her recital of her ailments and then gave her some medicine, advising her to remain in bed. Later Mrs. Daquin brought her breakfast and sat with her as she toyed with it, eating little. It’s nice of her to do this, thought Mimi. She’s getting more lovable every day.
As she still felt badly in the afternoon, Mimi went at her step-mother’s suggestion to see Dr. Adams. A few questions, an examination, and then Dr. Adams looked gravely at Mimi.
“You’re going to have a baby, Mimi,” he told her.
Mimi gasped, echoing his words. A great happiness filled her, happiness mingled with a sweeping flame of love for Carl. A baby! Hers and Carl’s! Her face shone with a great light, the light of contentment and love. There was no feeling of shame nor could she clearly understand why Dr. Adams’ face should remain so grave and worried. On that eventful night she and Carl had been caught up and swept on by a great tide of passion, an emotion overwhelming, beautiful, sacred. She had given of herself freely, without thought of consequences and without any sense of shame. To her it had been a magnificent, a pure and holy giving. Her smile puzzled Dr. Adams.
“Mimi, I’m afraid you don’t realize how serious a thing this is. Do you know what’ll happen to you and your reputation? And who’s the man?”
She told him simply and freely. Still her manner was a source of wonder to him. Ordinarily such a message would have brought forth tears, protestations of innocence, pleas for help. Mimi did none of these.
His face was set in grim lines as she told of Carl.
“The scoundrel! We’ll make him marry you and save your name from being dragged in the mud.”
“No—no, Doctor, you don’t understand. We’ve done nothing wrong, and if we have I’m as much to blame as Carl. Please don’t say anything about this until I see him … ”
She telephoned Carl, who came over to her house at once. She greeted him happily, the light of love yet shining in her face.
“Carl,” she cried as soon as he entered, “I’m going to have a baby!”
“You’re what?”
“I’m going to have a baby—Dr. Adams told me so this afternoon—I’m so happy,” she ended, a puzzled tone creeping into her voice.
“Did he ask you who was the father?”
“Yes, of course he did.”
“Who did you tell him?”
“Why, you, of course.”
He turned on her roughly.
“You little fool, what did you want to do that for?”
She gazed at him in dismay. She had expected a happiness equal to her own. Instead Carl glared at her as though he wanted to spring at her throat. With his anger was mingled fear—humiliation—she knew not what emotions passed rapidly over his countenance.
“Don’t you tell anybody else,” he demanded. “And to-morrow I’ll take you to a doctor who’ll fix you up—”
“Fix me up?”
“Yes—fix you up! Don’t you understand?”
Realization of what he meant came slowly to her. A bitterness filled her, bitterness that knew no end, bitterness worse than any she had ever known before. This, then, was the Carl she had loved, a shriveling coward. What a fool she had been to have believed that to him their love was the beautiful thing which it had been to her.
“My dad’ll kill me for this—he’ll drive me away like a dog … ” Carl was saying hoarsely.
He straightened up, fear leaving him.
“No—no—Mimi. We’ll go straight to mother and she’ll help us. We’ll go away and get married—pretend we eloped.”
He sought to put his arms around her. In his gesture there was a new note of possessiveness, his indecisiveness of the minutes before now gone.
She shrank from his touch. Her head went high and in her eyes was a look that frightened him.
“We’ll do nothing of the kind!” she cried. “I was a fool—you are right. I thought you were fine—clean—different from the others. You’re not. You’re just the same weak, vile sort that you were always hating and denouncing.”
“That’s all right, Mimi,” he sought to quiet her. “You’re all unstrung now. We’ll get married and give the kid a clean name—”
Mimi looked at him and in that glance was something that silenced him.
“Unstrung? Give the baby a clean name? After what you just suggested? You’ll do nothing of the sort! I’m going to have this baby, do you hear me? I’m going to have him and he’s going to be all mine. I guess he can get along lots easier with just a bad name than he can with a cowardly father—”
“Mimi, you don’t know what you’re saying!” Carl, now thoroughly alarmed, pleaded. “We’ve got to get married!”
“Got to? Well, we haven’t got to and we won’t! I’ll get along somehow, don’t you worry, but all the love I had for you has turned to black hate! This baby’ll be mine-all mine!”
She rushed from the room, leaving him standing there …
Safe in her room, she let the tears she had fought so hard to check in the parlour below flow without hindrance. As from a distance, she heard the front door slam and she breathed more easily, knowing Carl was no longer in the house.
She wondered why she had acted as she had, knowing as she did the full reason. Bitterness filled her as she went again and again over the scene just ended. Faith, deep, unlimited, had been killed. A bitter laugh mingled with her tears. She saw Carl now for the insincere poseur that he was—him whom she had thought decent and clean. For the first time there came over her a sense of shame—a feeling of guilt. She wondered how Mrs. Daquin would take it. Mimi determined resolutely that if there were a scene or recriminations of any sort she would leave and never return.
From below came the sound of Mrs. Daquin’s voice, calling her. Mimi dried her tears away and went down. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter sat in the parlour. Behind them stood Carl, his head down. Mrs. Hunter rose and attempted to take Mimi in her arms. Mimi evaded her.
“You poor, dear child!” Mrs. Hunter consoled her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hunter, but I don’t need any pity—it’s your son who needs it more,” Mimi told her. Her voice was hard, flat, cold.
Mrs. Hunter was not to be deterred. “But you and Carl must get married right away and save your name. When the baby’s nearly here, you two can go off on a long trip. Oh, dear, I’m so terribly upset—I almost feel like I’m the guilty one, pleading with you to save him—”
Back and forth the discussion raged. Mr. Hunter urged. His wife pleaded. Mrs. Daquin stormed. But Mimi remained firm …
After they had gone Mrs. Daquin took her turn.
“You silly little fool. You’re crazy. You’re going to get these crazy notions out of your head and marry Carl. I never in all my life heard of so silly a thing as this idea of yours. What if Carl is a weak and worthless scamp? Any kind of a man for a husband is better than none when a girl’s in your fix … ”
On and on she went, denouncing, pleading, scorning, appealing.
Mimi listened to the Niagara of words but they served only to make her more determined to do as she had declared she would. Jean’s words came to her—the advice he had given her long ago as they were about to leave New Orleans—“decide in your own mind the wisest, the best thing to be done, and then do it.” As she looked at the four faces she wondered what Jean would say if he were here now. Even as Mrs. Daquin stormed, Mimi knew there was much right in what she said. She would be condemned, her name derided. She knew she could not remain in Atlanta. Even if she could, the looks of disdain, the insults, would be unbearable. They had done that for years to the girl Carl had been going to see and they had had no definite proof on her of wrong doing.
She wondered what she could do. Where could she go? She had no training by which she could earn a living. And she certainly would not go to any city where she was liable to meet anybody who knew her. She thought of Aunt Sophie and her invitation to come and live with her in New York. No, she couldn’t accept that invitation now. Aunt Sophie would be just like these people here, would hate her for her misdeed. Suppose she did marry Carl. His parents would see that they wanted nothing. But always there would be in their minds, she was sure, the thought that she had come to them under a cloud—that she had done something disgraceful and by that means had married into their family. Mimi felt sure in time they too would hate her as much as she now hated Carl. No, her mind was made up. Whatever she might have to suffer, it was better that she keep her own soul free. That would certainly not be true if she married Carl now.
Wearily she faced her step-mother and spoke. The words came slowly, painstakingly, as though she were explaining a complex matter to a rather stupid child.
“Yes, I know all that you say is true. I am foolish. I am bringing on myself a terrible responsibility. But I can’t marry Carl—not now. He wanted me to go to a doctor—to fix me up—those were his very words. I hate him—and if I live to be a thousand years old I’ll hate him more every day I live. Don’t you worry—I’ll go away—I don’t know where, but anyway you won’t be bothered with me anymore. But I won’t marry Carl. My mind’s made up and I won’t change it … ”
A few weeks later Mimi boarded a train for Philadelphia. She could give no reason why she chose that city to which to go. The nearest she could explain her choice was that Philadelphia was large, she knew no one there and she was sure she could lose herself in its vastness. Mr. Hunter offered her money but she took only that which was due her through his purchase of half, her half, of the stock Jean had owned. Mrs. Daquin pleaded with her to the hour of departure to marry Carl, but Mimi’s determination grew stronger with her pleading. As the train wound its way through the maze of tracks and puffed its way northward through the bare red hills of Georgia, she gazed from the car-window with the feeling that she had definitely closed the pages of the first book of her life. She stared at the darkening landscape long after the lights in the car were turned on, and wondered what was written on the pages of that second book whose cover she now was lifting …
Chapter XIII
Month by month the time rolled slowly by for Mimi. She slept late in the morning, went out for walks in the afternoon or to a moving-picture show, retired early every evening. On Sundays she stole unobtrusively into the Catholic church near where she lived, varying this occasionally with attendance at the Methodist church to which the elderly couple with which she boarded belonged. They were simple, kindly people who made a comfortable living from a small catering business which kept them away from home a great deal. Mimi thus had the house to herself a large part of the time, for which she was grateful, as it relieved her of the strain of meeting and talking to people and answering embarrassing questions.
The old couple frequently speculated to themselves who and what she might be. To the woman’s indirect and friendly questions Mimi gave evasive answers which seemed to satisfy the simple and uninquisitive nature of the elderly woman. To her neighbours she said that Mimi was a young widow grieving for her dead husband, which explanation, in view of the mourning garments Mimi yet wore for Jean, was accepted in good faith. Mimi often wept at the expressions, either by word or unobtrusive actions, of sympathy which came to her from the elderly couple and their friends. And often, too, guilt assailed her, for she felt she was accepting these ministrations under false colours. There were moments when she felt she could not accept them any longer, that she must tell them the true story. Always before taking such a step, however, she restrained her impulses. She knew no one else in Philadelphia who would take her in, she was paying for her room and excellent food a ridiculously low sum, and her little store of money which had seemed so large when Mr. Hunter had given it to her, was shrinking with dismaying speed.
When the long, dreary, slushy days of winter had given way to the invigorating and friendly warmth of an early spring, she spent most of her days sitting in the park. Used to the tropical heat of New Orleans, the biting winds and driving snows of the North made her miserable and depressed, though her years in Atlanta had inured her to a degree against the cold. But she did not like cold weather, and the coming of the days when she could see the delicate green of the sprouting grass and budding trees made her very happy.
She would take with her to the park a book or more often a newspaper but she seldom read. She was content to sit and watch children at play or gaze at friendly squirrels who so ludicrously sat rapidly revolving a nut disentombed from earthy caches in their little forepaws as they bit into its hard shell.
Even the sinking of a huge vessel like the Titanic after collision with an iceberg off the Canadian coast with great loss of life could not stir her. Nor could the hectic days of an election year stir her from her apathy. A former school teacher from New Jersey, a prominent member of Congress, a twice-defeated candidate for the Presidency, a fat, jovial and weak President, and a vigorous ex-President were scrambling madly for nominations, but so far as Mimi was concerned, they might just as well have been struggling for the rulership of an obscure island in the South Seas.
As the time of her ordeal approached she achieved a calmness of which she had never believed herself capable. Her hatred, her contempt for Carl had passed and in its stead had come a complete lack of feeling towards him. She saw him now in perspective more and more clearly as the weak individual he had proved himself to be. She wondered why she had not seen it sooner, why traits of his which now were revealed all too clearly had been invisible to her. His indecisiveness, his succumbing to indifference and easy vices when they had first parted on Hilda’s account, should have been a clear warning to her. She did not object to his drinking or other derelictions on moral grounds. As a matter of fact Carl’s association with the girl who was déclassée had not seemed to her as a thing to be condemned. Towards the girl Mimi had had a very kindly and sympathetic feeling and she had had no word of condemnation or scorn for her, Mimi now realized that she should have seen in these little strayings from which she had saved Carl at such a cost to herself the true measure of Carl’s character. But even as she saw now what might and should have been, she knew that at the time she had been so blinded by her love for Carl she could never have realized the full importance of the things then under her very eyes.
Her sense of contentment had its roots in a deep spiritual awareness which gave her great comfort. She seldom thought now of the condemnation she was doubtless receiving in Atlanta. Instead she was happy, very happy she had acted as she had. She and the baby would get along somehow and they would be very happy together. Lacking respect, despising Carl, she would never have been happy with him, and her religion would not have allowed her to divorce him. What though her money was disappearing so rapidly? By economy she would surely have enough to last her through her confinement and permit her to spend a few weeks in the country until she was strong again. Then she could easily get a job and she and the baby would be happy together.
