What Will People Say? A Novel
scattered broadcast in every servants' hall in town?"
And then he heard Crofts at the door, and in spite of him habit
throttled him; he pulled down the comic mask he had pushed back from his
dour face. He ransacked his brain for something humorous to serve as a
libretto, and he was reminded of a story he had laughed at heartily
before he learned that his own household was a theme for laughter.
He began to giggle uncannily, gruesomely. Persis looked at him,
wondering if he had gone mad and begun to gibber. But while Crofts and
the others served deviled crabs in their grotesque shells he began to
explain his elation, overacting sadly:
"I heard the best story to-day about Mrs. Tom Corliss."
Forgetfully Persis, from her own glass house, protested: "Oh, don't tell
me anything about that woman!"
Enslee sneered. "Oh, you're always so easily shocked--such a prude, so
conventional!"
Persis understood and blanched. "Go on, I'll stand it."
Enslee began to snicker again, taking some support in his shame from
another man's disgrace.
"Well, you know old plutocrat Crane?"
"Not old Deacon Crane," Persis gasped, "that passes the plate at
church?"
Willie nodded.
"What can he have to do with any story about Mrs. Tom?"
Enslee he-he'd. "That's the fun of it. Mrs. Tom, it seems--one day when
Tom was off to the races--entertained the dear Deacon at a little
dinner--served _a deux_. The Deacon used to give her tips on the market
and back them himself for her, and she--well, he was talking about the
present-day craze for dancing with bare feet, _et cetera_; and she vowed
that she wasn't ashamed of her feet either; and so she made the Deacon
play Mendelssohn's Spring Song on the pianola, and--"
He looked up to find that Chedsey, while pretending to be very busy at
the sideboard, wore a smile that extended almost into the ear he perked
round for the gossip. Willie choked on his own laughter, and roared:
"Chedsey, leave the room, and don't come back!"
Chedsey slunk away, and Roake became a statue of gravity. Crofts had not
heard at all. Willie finished his story without mirth.
"Anyway, Tom Corliss came in unexpectedly just then, and--well, when the
Deacon finally got home his wife met him in the hall; he told her he had
been sandbagged by a footpad; and she believed him!"
Willie found Tom Corliss' shame so piquant that he began to relish his
food. Crofts, a little encouraged, nodded to Roake and led him out for
the next dish.
Persis took small comfort from other people's sordid scandals. They
seemed to have no relation to the pure and high tragedy that had ended
the romance of her own love. Seeing that they were alone again, she
expressed her dislike before she realized its inconsistency.
"And where did you pick up all this garbage?"
Enslee was outraged at this ingratitude for his hard work. "Oh, it
shocks you, eh? So beautiful a veneer of refinement and so thin!"
"Where did you hear it?" Persis persisted, lighting herself a cigarette
to give her restless hands employment; and Willie answered:
"Mrs. Corliss' second man told it to Mrs. Neff's kitchen maid, and she
to Mrs. Neff's maid, and she to Mrs. Neff; and Mrs. Neff to Jimmie
Chives, and he to me--at the Club."
"At the Club?"
"Where I heard of your behavior."
"You heard of me at the Club?" Persis gasped.
"Yes, that crowning disgrace was reserved for me. Big Bob Fielding took
me to one side and said: 'Willie, everybody in town knows something that
you ought to be the first to know--and seem to be the last. I hate to
tell you, but somebody ought to,' he said. And I said 'What's all that?'
And he said: 'Your wife and Captain Forbes are a damned sight better
friends,' he said, 'than the law allows,' he said."
The room swam, and Persis clung to her chair to keep from toppling out
of it.
"So that's what he said. And what did you say?"
"I didn't believe him--then. I was too big a fool to believe him; but he
opened my eyes, and I came home to see what was going on. And I saw!"
Persis was on fire with a woman's anxiety to know if any champion had
defended her name. She demanded again:
"What did you say to Bob Fielding?"
And Enslee answered with a helpless, mincing burlesque of dignity:
"I told him he was a cad, and I didn't want him ever to speak to me
again."
"And you didn't strike him?"
Enslee cast up his eyes at the thought of attacking the famous
center-rush; then he lowered his eyes before her blazing contempt. She
demanded again, incredulously: "You didn't strike him?"
Enslee dropped his face into his two palms and wept, the tears leaking
through his fingers. Persis felt outlawed even from chivalry. She gagged
at the thought: "Agh! The humiliation!"
Enslee lifted his head again, his wet eyes flashing. "Humiliation?" he
screeched, in a frenzy of self-pity. "Do you talk of humiliation? What
about me? My father and mother brought me into the world with a small
frame and a poor constitution. They left me money as a compensation. And
what did my money do for me? It bought me a woman--who despised me--who
dishonored me before the world. And I'm too weak to take revenge. I'm
helpless in my disgrace, helpless!"
He sobbed like a lonely girl, his eyes hid in the crook of his left arm,
his elbow on the table, his little hand clenching and unclenching. His
tears brought tears to Persis. It was the first time she had ever felt
sorry for Willie; had ever realized that a weak man does not select his
weaknesses, though he must endure their consequences. She had often
justified herself by the plea that she had not chosen her own soul, but
must get along with it. That defense was her husband's, too.
The swinging door thudded softly, and Willie raised himself in his
chair, but he could not quell the buffets of his sobs, and he dared not
put his handkerchief to his eyes. And so Crofts, bending close to remove
the crab-shells, noted the grief-crumpled face and the drench of tears;
his mind went back to the time when Willie Enslee was a child and wept
in a high chair in his nursery. Before he could suppress it the old man
had let slip the query:
"Why, Master Willie, you're not crying?"
Willie, with splendid presence of mind, answered:
"Nonsense, you old fool, it's that deviled crab. There was so much
cayenne pepper in it, it w-went to my eyes."
Crofts was desolated.
"Oh, I am sorry, sir. The chef shall hear of it, sir. And the roast
now--shall I carve it, or will you?"
Willie looked drearily across at Persis. "Do you want any roast?"
She frowned with aversion. "I couldn't touch it."
And Willie shook his head to Crofts. "We'll skip the roast. What follows
that? Be quick about it!"
Crofts lowered his voice, as if a game-warden might be listening, for it
was after the season had closed. "There is a pheasant, sir--sent down
from your own run, sir. It is braised, _financiere_. I'm sure you'll
like it. You may have to wait a little, seeing as you didn't eat the
roast; but it's worth waiting for, sir."
The old man was pleading both for the honor of his menu and for the
welfare of his master. Willie nodded curtly, and the roast, that had
ridden in so royally on its silver palanquin with its retinue of cutlery
and its hot plates, was removed in disgrace.
Once more husband and wife were abandoned to themselves. But now Persis
looked with new eyes at the heap of misery collapsed in the opposite
chair. All these years Willie had tried to win her love with gifts, with
splendors, with caresses, prayers, compliments, and with weak
experiments in tyranny. And he had failed dismally. Finally his failure
and his shame had crushed him into abjection.
And now her heart went out to him with a melting tenderness. But now she
was unworthy to approach him. Now it was she that must plead:
"I'm awfully sorry for you, Willie. You haven't had a fair deal. I never
realized what a rotter I've been till now. But if you'll let me, I'll
try again; I'll try hard, really, honestly, Willie. The only man I ever
seemed to care for has taken himself out of my life. He hates me as you
hate me. I haven't much of anything to live for now except to try to
square things with you. I'll do better by you. I'll be on the level with
you after this. Honestly I will. We'll find happiness yet."
"Happiness!"
Even at this belated hour the world's ambition was so dear to him that
he was wrung with longing.
"It might have been possible if I hadn't found you out. I was a fool to
trust you so blindly, but I was a happy fool. I didn't know how happy I
was till I learned how unhappy I can be. Oh, Persis, how could you--how
could you? You seemed so clean and so cold and so proud, and you've let
that man make as big a fool of you as you've made of me."
She took her lashings meekly, hoping thereby to achieve some atonement.
"I know, I know," she confessed. "But we can keep other people from
knowing. We don't have to tell all the world, do we?"
Again the vision of stalking gossip enraged him. "The world--ha! It
always knows everything before the husband suspects anything. I've said
that about so many other fools I've known. Now it's my turn. Here we sit
at dinner in this ruined home as if everything were all right. Think of
it! After what I saw and heard I'm sitting here trying to persuade a
pack of flunkeys that you have been a good wife to me!"
"It's hideous, I know, Willie. I'll go away to-morrow. You can divorce
me if you want to. I won't resist. It will be horrible to drag your name
through the yellow papers. But I won't resist--unless you think you
might let our life run along as before until gossip has starved to
death? We'll be no worse than the rest, Willie. Every family has its
skeleton in the closet. The worst gossips have the worst skeletons.
Let's fight it out together, Willie, won't you? Please!"
She stretched one importunate hand across the table to him, but he
stared at her with glazed eyes. "And go on like this the rest of our
lives? Sitting at table like this every day, facing each other and
knowing what we know? Knowing what other people know of us? Keep up the
ghastly pretense till we grow old?"
She drew back her rejected hand with a sigh, but pleaded on: "It's not
very pretty, that's true; but let's be good sports and play the game. We
tried marriage without love, for you knew I didn't really love you,
Willie. You knew it and complained of it. But you married me. I tried to
do what was right. I ran away from him in France, and I tried to love
you and unlove him. But you can't turn your heart like a wheel, you
know. We've married and failed. But nearly everybody else has failed one
way or another, Willie. Nobody gets what he wants out of life. Let's
play the game through. You said to me once--do you remember?--you said,
'Gad, Persis, but you're a good loser.' And I've lost a little, too,
Willie. I've had a pretty hard day of it, too. Let's be good losers,
Willie; let's try it again, won't you? Won't you, please?"
She sat with hands clasped, and thrust them out to him and prayed to him
as if he were an ugly little idol. But contrition did not seem to render
her more attractive in his eyes. It hardened his heart against her.
"When I look at you I can only think what you've been to that man;
where you've gone, what you've done. You sit there half naked now, ready
to go to the opera, to expose your body before the mob--my body--my
wife's body. You show it in public--and you dance it in public with
anybody--with him! The first time you saw him you were dressed like
that, and you danced with him that loathsome tango. You taught him how.
And he has taught you how to be his wife--not mine.
"You've set everybody laughing at me. They're all saying I was a blind,