The Woman in the Alcove

X X B UT if she wished him to know she gave no other sign. She spent the money that he gave her, and when it was gone she asked him for more. Only once she had said as she took it: “You are sure it is right for me to spend this?” And he had replied: “When you ask for anything I cannot give you I will let you know.” She had said nothing. She had not even glanced at him. But somehow he fancied that she understood him. He grew to know, by intuition, the days when she would go to Merwin’s. As he left the house he would say: “She will be there—” And when he dropped in, in the afternoon, he did not even need to glance at the alcove on the right. He would sit down quietly in his place across the aisle, glad to be with her. He never saw her come and go and he did not know whether any one was with her—behind her curtain. He tried not to know.... He was trying to understand Rosalind. What was it drew her? Was it music—or the quiet place? Or was there———? He could easily have known.... Gordon Barstow’s detective would have made sure for him in a day.... But Eldridge did not want to know—anything that a detective could tell him. He did not want to be told by detectives or told things detectives could tell. He was studying Rosalind’s every wish—as if he were a boy. He did not go to Merwin’s till he felt sure that she would be there in the alcove, and he left before she drew the little curtain and came out. He did not want to know.... He only wanted her to be there—and to sit with her a little while, quietly.... He would wait and understand. A piano had come into the house and the boys were taking lessons. One day he discovered that Rosalind was learning, too. He had come home early, wondering whether he would ask her to go for a walk with him. He had asked her once or twice and they had gone for a little while before supper, walking aimlessly through the suburban streets, saying very little; he had fancied that Rosalind liked it—but he could not be sure. He opened the door with his latchkey and stepped in. Some one was playing softly, stopping to sing a little, and then playing again.... Rosalind was alone. He stood very quiet in the dark hall; only a little light from above the door—shining on the stair rail and on a lamp that hung above it.... She was playing with the lightest touch—a few notes, as if feeling her way, and then the little singing voice answering it.... So she was like this—very still and happy—and he was shut out. His hand groped behind him for the latch and found it and opened the door, and he stepped outside and closed the door softly. He stood a moment in the wind. Behind his door he heard the music playing to itself.... He walked for a long time that afternoon—along the dull streets, staring at brick houses and at children running past him on brick walks.... It was all brick walks and long rows of houses—and dulness; he could not reach Rosalind. He could buy clothes for her—more bricks... and there was the music—his mind halted—and went on. Music made her happy—like that! He bought an evening paper and studied it awhile, standing by the newsstand, with the cars and taxis shooting past. Presently he folded the paper and took a car that was going toward town. There was something he could do for Rosalind—something that no one had thought of—something that she would like! He was as eager and as ignorant as a boy, standing in front of the barred ticket window and looking in. “Tickets for the Symphony?” The man glanced out at him. “House sold out.” Eldridge stared back. “You mean—I cannot—get them!” “Something may come in. You can leave your name.” The man pushed paper and pencil toward him. Eldridge wrote his name slowly. “I want—good ones.” “Can’t say—” said the man. “There are six ahead of you—” He took up the paper and made a note. Eldridge stepped outside. A man looked at him and moved up, falling into step beside him. “I have a couple of tickets—” he said softly. He did not know that he was speaking to a man on a quest, a man who would have paid whatever he might ask for the slips of paper in his hand—They were not mere symphony tickets he sold. They were tickets to the fields of the sun. He asked five dollars for them; he might have got fifty. Eldridge slipped them into his pocket. He stepped back into the hall. “I shall not need those tickets,” he said. The man in the window glanced at him, indifferent, and crossed out a name. All the way home Eldridge’s heart laughed. Would she like it?... She had played so softly... she would listen like that—and he would be with her.... He could not keep the tickets in his pocket. He took them out and looked at them—two plain blue slips with a few black marks on them.... And he had thought of it himself!—It was not Mr. El-dridge Walcott’s money that bought them for her.... Would she understand it was not money—? She took them from him with half-pleased face—“For the Symphony?” she said. “I thought you might—we—. might like it—” She looked at them a minute. “I never went to a symphony—” “Nor I—” He laughed a little. “I thought we might—try it.” She was still regarding them thoughtfully. “I haven’t anything to wear—have I—?” She looked up with the wrinkled line between her eyes. “Wear your—” He checked it on his tongue. “Get something—There’s a week, you know. You can get something, can’t you?” “Yes, if you think I ought—” “Of course—get what you need.” She waited thoughtfully.... “I have—a dress that might do—with a little changing—” she said. He saw with a flash, suddenly, the dark attic above them—and a man on his knees staring down at the grey and shimmering whiteness. “Better get something new, wouldn’t you?” said Eldridge. “Perhaps—I will think—about it.” He could not have told which he wished——-But when, the night of the concert, she came down to him wearing the grey dress and long grey gloves, with the lace falling softly back—he knew in the flash, as he looked at her, that he was glad.... She was buttoning one of the gloves and the long grey coat hung from her arm. She did not look up. He took it from her and wrapped her in it. They were going to another world—together. She was going—with him. There was a little, quiet flush in her face as she sat in the car. Other people were going to the concert, and she looked at them as they came in and sat down. And Eldridge looked at Rosalind. He did not speak to her.... They were going to a new world—and the car was taking them.... Bits of talk—color—drifting fragrance as the coats fell back.... The woman across the aisle had a bunch of violets.... Why had he not thought to get violets for Rosalind! Would she have liked flowers—? She seemed a strange Rosalind, sitting beside him in the car in her grey dress—her eyes like little stars.... They had three children... and a brick house.... The car jolted on. Eldridge would have wished that it might never stop.... There would not be another night like this. He could put out his hand and touch mystery.... Then he was helping her over the crowded street and they were in the hall—with flowers everywhere—and something close about you that touched you when you moved. For years afterward he looked back to that Symphony with Rosalind. He had come blindly to a door—as blindly as, when a boy, he had walked in the moonlight—and they had gone in together. They were like children in its strangeness. And as children explore a new field, they went forward. It belonged to them—the lights and people, and vibrations everywhere.... They would go till they came to the end—but there would be no end—always hills stretching beyond, and a wood—something deep, mysterious in that wood.... They came to it softly, looking in, and turned back.... Once Rosalind had turned and looked at him. He held that fast—through the weeks and months that went by, through the dull brick streets, he held it fast—for a moment the hidden Rosalind had come to her window and looked out at him and smiled—before she turned away. XI T HE next day Gordon Barstow had come to see him. The divorce had dragged on. It had not been contested, but there had been delays and consultations and Eldridge had come to know Gordon Barstow well. He had a kind of keen, vicarious pity for Barstow. Sometimes, as he talked with him and the simple lovableness of the man’s nature came up through the uncouthness, he wondered whether Gordon Barstow might not have regained his wife—if he had been determined. But he had let her go; and after the first day he had seemed to take a kind of pleasure in the proceedings. “I’ve been foolish about her,” he said, sitting in Eldridge’s office. “But I don’t want her to suffer because I’ve been foolish—and I want to make her an allowance—a good one. I don’t want Cordelia should ever be poor.” Eldridge looked at him. “Won’t Tower take care of that?” he suggested. The old man seemed to hold it—“He’ll mean to. He’s honest toward her. I shouldn’t let him marry her if he wasn’t straight. But I want Cordelia provided for.” And Eldridge suddenly saw that he was thinking of her as a man thinks of his daughter—protectingly. The soreness seemed to have gone out of his hurt. And there was something big in his attitude toward the two who had wronged him. “Cordelia’s only a child,” he said. “I don’t believe I’d ’a’ minded so much—if they’d trusted me. It’s that that hurts, I guess—thinking of the times they must ’a’ lied—and I not knowing enough to see anything was wrong.” Yes—it was that that hurt—the times Rosalind had slipped away from him, before he knew—when he hadn’t eyes enough to see. He did not mind that she went to Merwin’s. Sometimes he was impatient that she did not go oftener. He would watch eagerly for the look in her face that told him that to-day was a Merwin day.... He did not mind her going, now that he knew. It was the not knowing that hurt. Sometimes, lately, he had begun to wonder whether Rosalind knew that he was there, whether she guessed who it was that came through the swinging doors and sat across the aisle, always a little behind her, and went away before she left her place.... He liked to fancy that she knew—and did not mind. Men and women were not so small as he had made them in his thought. There was room in them generally for life to turn round. It was this that Gordon Barstow had taught him, he thought. He watched the old man’s simple preparations to make Cordelia “well off” with quiet understanding. It was not reparation with him; it was only a steady, clear intention in the old man’s thought that the woman he had loved and who had gone from him should not suffer.... “I might have kept her—if I’d understood quick enough, I guess. I’m slow—about women,” he said. Then one day he came into the office. Eldridge had sent him word that there were last papers to sign—and the business would be done. He came in slowly, a little pinched with the cold. The wart in the grey-black beard had a bluish look. Eldridge had learned not to look at the half-hidden lump of flesh. He had fancied one day, as his eye rested on it, that the man shrank a little. He had been surprised and he had never looked at it again. It was the curious bluish look to-day that caught his eye an instant. The old man signed the papers and pushed them back. “Well, I’m glad—it’s done.” He sat looking at them a minute. “It’s taught me more than I ever knew before,” he said. He lifted his eyes a minute to Eldridge. “I’ve learned things—thinking about it—and about her—” He sat without speaking a little time. He had come to trust Eldridge, and he seemed to like to sit quiet like this, at times, without speaking. “I saw a woman to-day,” he said, “that made me understand—more than Cordelia has—a woman in at Merwins.”—Eldridge leaned forward—“She was sitting there alone,” said the old man, “and I see her face—one of these quiet faces—not old and not young. I could ’a’ loved her if I’d known her when I was younger—I see how she was—she sat so quiet there. Well”—he got up and reached for his hat—“you’ve seen me through. Thank you—for what you’ve done.” And then he went out and Eldridge looked at his watch—Too late. She would be gone. It was the first time he had missed her—since he knew. He had not thought that Barstow’s business would take so long. He gathered up the papers, filing certain ones and addressing others to be mailed.... He should miss the old man. He had a feeling underneath his thought, as he sorted the papers and filed them, that he was glad Barstow had sat so long even though he had missed Rosalind.... He had seemed to want to stay. Eldridge filed the last of the papers and looked again at his watch. It was late, but not too late, he decided, to begin the piece of work that had been put off for nearly a week. He became absorbed in it, and it was seven o’clock before he left the office. The newsboys were shouting extras—as he came out—and he put one in his pocket. He did not open it. Some one took a seat by him in the car and they talked till the car reached home. Then the children claimed him; and after supper he talked a little while with Rosalind. There was a maid now in the kitchen and Rosalind’s hands, he was thinking, as they lay in her lap, were not red and roughened; they had a delicate look. She sat sometimes without any sewing in them or any fussy work—talking with him or sitting quiet. The first time she had sat so, without speaking, he had felt as if the silence were calling out—shouting his happiness—telling the world that Rosalind trusted him. He opened the paper and glanced at it—and dropped it—as if he were seeing something. She looked up. “What is it?” she asked. He took it up again slowly. “It’s a man—I know—Gordon Barstow. They found him dead—in his car this afternoon. It’s some one you never knew.” XII W EEKS passed and she had not gone to Merwin’s. For a while Eldridge watched her face and waited for the Merwin look to come.... Then he forgot it—for weeks he did not think of it. There had been another concert; they had gone to a play and then to another; and as the spring came on he took her for long drives into the country; sometimes they went with the children, but more often alone. They drove far out in the country and came back at early dusk, the brick houses softly outlined about them. She could not fail to see that he was devoted to her. Sometimes he brought a flower and left it on her table; he never gave it to her directly, and there was no response to it. Beyond the one quiet look at the concert, she had given no sign—only that now she would sit with him silent, a long time, as if she did not repel him. He was working hard and the business had grown. A new class of clients was coming to him—men with big interests—and the work often kept him late at the office. Sometimes he would take supper in town and work far into the evening. It was late in June that he came home one night and found her sitting alone in the porch—a shadowy figure—as he came up the brick walk. The day had been warm, but the air had grown cool now and the moon glimmered over the houses and roofs and on the few trees and shrubs in the yard. They sat a long time in the porch, talking of the children and of the work he had stayed for and a little about going away for the summer; they had never been away in the summer, but they were going next week. He had tried to send her earlier, when the children were through school, but she had waited, and he had arranged for them all to get away together. The moon rose high over the roofs and picked out the little lines of vines on the porch and touched her face and hair. She was wearing a light dress, something filmy, that was half in shadow, and his eyes traced the lines of it. She was always mysterious, but often now as he looked at her he felt that her guard was down. There were only a few steps more to cross—he began to wonder if he should ever take them—to-night perhaps? Or was he not, after all, the man to win her? She did not hold him back. It was something in him that waited. He watched, through the moonlight, the vine shadows on her face—and he remembered the night when she lay asleep—and he had watched her face—the stranger’s face—close to him... and a boy and girl stood in the moonlight and looked at him mistily—and drew back—and his wife swayed a little, rocking in her chair, and her shadow moved on the floor.... If he should speak—to her—now—what would she do? Would the gentle rocking cease?... Then, slowly, a face grew before him. He watched it shape and fade—with its grimness and kindness and a look of pain that lay behind it—old Barstow’s face!... He knew now—he had come out of the moonlight.... To-morrow he would speak to Rosalind—face to face, in the clear light of every day.... The wonder of life was hidden in the sun—not in half lights—or moonlight.... He was not afraid now. They would go for a long drive—and he would tell her in the sun. But when he looked at her in the morning he knew that he was not to take her with him out into the country. It was the Merwin look—a little look of quiet intentness as if she dreamed and would not wake.... He looked at it and turned away. He had not seen the look for weeks, but he knew that he should find her there when he pushed open the swinging doors and went in. The curtains were drawn a little back and he knew, before he sat down, that she was there—waiting for some one.... He had never seen her like this—he had not been sure. He had put the thought from him when it came. But now he knew—she was there waiting for some one, full of happiness.... He knew her so well! She could not have a happiness he did not share—and no one should hurt her! His hands half clinched. He had not thought she would come—again.... Why had she come? And this was his day—under the sky!... He had not thought this day she would come to Merwin’s! Then he waited with her. Whatever Rosalind chose—she should not separate herself from him—or from love.... He would wait with her and be glad with her.... The strange face—the moonlight face—did not shut him out now.... The swinging doors opened and closed and the man and the woman waited. The curtains to her alcove were closed; she had reached a hand to them and drawn them together.... But she could not shut herself away; he could see her as clearly as if he were there with her—the bent head and gentle face. The curtains should not shut him out. He could not have told when it was that it came to him—He lifted his head a minute and looked at it.... She was there waiting for some one—she had been waiting, a long time, in her alcove—and he had not stirred! He got up slowly and looked across to the green curtain—He moved toward it—and put out his hand and—drew back the curtain.... She was looking up, smiling—“You were—a long time!” she said. Her hand motioned to the seat across the table—but he did not take it. He stood looking down at her—He laid his hat on the table and bent and kissed her. Her lip trembled a little but she did not speak. He sat down in the chair opposite and looked at her——-“Well—?” he said. She shook the tears from her eyes and smiled through them. “It was a long while!” she said. XIII T HE man and the woman in the alcove on the right had been talking a long while. Three times the waiter had looked in and withdrawn. If he had stopped long enough he would have seen that it seemed to be the woman who was talking. The man sat silent, one hand shading his eyes and the eyes looking out at her as she talked. The waiter knew the woman. He had served her—many times. He remembered very well the first day she came to Merwin’s—a year ago—more than a year, perhaps. She was alone, and she had stood just inside the swinging door—looking about her as if she were not used to places like Merwin’s—or as if she were afraid. Something had made him think that she was looking for some one—and he had shown her into the third alcove on the right. But no one had come that day. She had come again many times since, and always alone, and there was always a coin on the table in the third alcove waiting for him. The waiter was a little disappointed to-day.... He knew the man—Eldridge Walcott—a lawyer—a good enough sort; but the waiter somehow felt that they had not met until today. He had served them both alone—but not together—until to-day.... He pushed aside the curtain and looked in. She was still talking.... The man made a little gesture of refusal, and he withdrew.... “It was when Tom sent me the five hundred—” the waiter heard her say as the curtain fell in place. The man in the alcove behind the curtain was looking at her—“When did Tom send you—five hundred?” “A year ago—a little more than a year, I think—” She paused to think it out. “He had not sent us anything, you know—not since little Tom was born—?” She was looking at him, straight—— His own look did not flinch. “I know—I put it into the business—called it investing it—for Tommie—at six per cent.” She nodded. “Tom never liked it. I suppose mother told him—that we had not used it to buy things with—the way he meant us to.” “For things you needed,” said the man. “I know—I knew then—but I took it.” He did not excuse himself—and his eyes did not look away from her. “I was blind,” he said softly. “That was what Tom wrote—when he sent the five hundred. He said that I must spend it on myself—or return it to him.... And that I was to tell him just what I bought with it—every penny of it—” She waited a minute. “Did he say anything else?” asked the man. “Better tell me everything, wouldn’t you—Rosalind?” “He said that he was not setting Eldridge Walcott up in business,” she added after a little minute—and she smiled at him tenderly. Eldridge returned the look—“We don’t mind—now.” “No.”... They were silent a few minutes. “I thought—at first—I would send it back. I wrote to Tom how many things we needed—for the house—and the children—and for everything—” “What did he say?” “He asked me if you would let me spend it for the house and for the children and for everything—if you knew about it?” The man’s eyes were looking at Mr. Eldridge Walcott, regarding him impartially. “I am glad that you did not let me know.” “Yes. I sent it back—once. But Tom wrote again—all about when we were children and when he gave me the biggest bites of candy and filled my pail up to the top when we went berrying——-He said it was what had made a man of him—keeping my pail full.” Eldridge winced a little. But she did not stop. “He said he wanted me to spend the money for the little girl he knew. “I didn’t spend it—not for a long time, you know. But I kept it and I looked at it—sometimes—and wondered.... Then one day I saw a dress—that I liked. I thought it was like me, a little—?” She looked at him——— He nodded. “So I got it—and that was the end, I guess.” She laughed tremulously. “Everything kept coming after that. The dress seemed to make me need— everything! ” She spread out her hands. Then she sat thinking—and looking at the dress that needed everything. “I wore it at first just at home—when I was alone. I would put it on and sit down and fold my hands—and think of things... about Tom and about being a little girl—and about mother. I was always rested when I took it off... and when the children came in from school and you came home, I could bear things better.”.... He reached out a hand and touched hers where it lay on the table.... He had said that he should touch it—some time. He stroked it a minute and she went on. “Then I came here—” She made a little gesture. “I didn’t know what it was like—I didn’t even know there was a place like this.” She glanced around the alcove that sheltered them—with its folds of green curtain—“But as soon as I came, I knew I should come again. I knew it would take care of me—the way Tom wanted for me. So I spent the money.” She lifted the little linked purse from the table—she laughed. “Only fifty cents left—You ’re here just in time!” Eldridge held out his hand. “Give it to me.” She looked at him. “I want it—yes. Aren’t you willing to give me fifty cents—of your five hundred?” She handed it to him with a little sigh of relief. He took it and balanced it thoughtfully in his hand—“Why did you come to-day?” he asked. “This is my anniversary day.” “To-day?” She nodded—as if she saw a vision. “It is a year to-day that I came here—the first time.” “Alone—?” The word breathed itself—and stopped, and Eldridge put out a hand. “Don’t tell me! I did not ask it.” “Don’t you know?” She was looking at him. “Yes, I know. I do not understand—but I know.” She smiled and sat silent.... “I was frightened to come!” It seemed as if she were looking at the strangeness of it. “I was afraid—the first day—” “You should have asked me to come,” he urged. “Would you have come?” “No—not then.” “And I had to come! I could not wait—and there was—no one.... You would not have come—not even if I had waited.” “No—I should not have come—except to find you.... Tell me, have you never been afraid of me—of what I would do?” “The first day—yes—I was terribly frightened when you came in and sat over there,” she moved her hand. “I wanted to scream out—to go to you and tell you what it meant, and beg you not to be angry.... I had never done anything without you before. I was like a child! Then you went out and I hurried home. I tore off the things. I did not mind your knowing. I only wanted you to understand. I was afraid you might not—understand.” “I didn’t—” “No—I know. But after a while—I knew you were trying to.... Then I knew that some day we should be here—together.” The little alcove seemed to expand and become a wide place—Eldridge caught a glimpse of something fine and sincere—it passed like a breath over her face and was gone. She lifted the face—“I have waited for it,” she said. “I have prayed for it every day, I think.” Her lips barely moved the words—“I did not want to feel alone here.” He pushed back the curtain and beckoned to the waiter. “We will drink to the day,” he said. Eldridge gave his order and looked on, smiling, while the waiter placed the slender-necked flask on the table and brought out the glasses and withdrew. They lifted the glasses. “To the day—you left me,” he said. “And to the day I followed you,” he added slowly. The glass paused in her hand. “That was the Symphony—?” “Yes—And to your anniversary!” She set down the glass. “I have not told you everything. It was not—my anniversary—made me come—to-day.” “No?” She shook her head. “I came—to meet—you!” she said. He looked at her slowly—“And when did you know that I would come?” he asked. “Last night—in the moonlight. I was so afraid you would speak there—in the moon! I did not want the moon to get in,” she said. “I wanted you to speak in real, plain daylight—and then, of course, you know, it’s Tom’s gown and not the moon. Everybody has the moon!” she laughed. “This is a very little place, this alcove,” said Eldridge. He was looking about him at the green walls of the alcove—thinking of the sun and the fields and of the road up through the hills—— “But it’s where I went berrying with Tom,” she laughed. He smiled at her. “Then it is as big as the world—and the sun and all the fields of the sun!” he said. Outside the curtain the music tinkled dimly, and there was a lower music still of all the glasses and words—and there was a silence in the alcove. “So there has never been any one—any one but me—” he said, “in your alcove!” He was looking at her hap-pily. “No.” Her lip waited on it—and closed. “There was some one—” she spoke slowly. “It seems a queer thing to tell. It had no beginning and no end!” She waited, still looking at it.... “It was a man—an old man—that used to sit over there to the left, at a table by himself. I could see him through the curtains. Even when they were almost closed I could see him. He always sat there, and always alone.... I did not notice him at first.... I do not think any one would have noticed him—at first. He was almost ugly—or he seemed ugly.” She was smiling at her thought.... “And one day suddenly I saw him as he really was, as he was inside—very gentle and strong and wise—and not wanting to hurt any one or to let any one suffer—more than they had to. I knew, some way, if I should go up to him and speak to him, that he would understand me—and help me. I should have liked to—speak to him. Of course it is really the same as if I did.”... She seemed thinking of it. “But I didn’t. I never saw him more than a dozen times, I suppose. But I used to think about him, and it helped me. I should have trusted him anywhere—and been willing to go with him—anywhere in the world. I don’t believe he was very clever—but it rested me to think of him—just as a big, homely field rests you—and the way the music did that first night—when we knew each other——-” After a minute she went on. “I have not seen him for a long time. He stopped coming suddenly....” *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. 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