The Green Bay Tree (Bromfield, Frederick A. Stokes Company, printing 11)/Chapter 43
IT was Lily who in the end mentioned the affair. She spoke of it as they sat at lunch in the paneled dining room.
"Mama," she said suddenly, "tells me that you know all about Jean."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Tolliver, in a queer unearthly voice. "She told me."
"I'm glad, because I wanted to tell you before, only she wouldn't let me. She said you wouldn't understand."
There was an awesome little pause and Mrs. Tolliver, her fork poised, said, "I don't quite understand, Lily. I must say it's puzzling. But I guessed you knew what you were doing. It wasn't as if you were a common woman who took lovers." She must have seen the faint tinge of color that swept over Lily's face, but she continued in the manner of a virtuous woman doing her duty, seeing a thing in the proper light, being fair and honest. "I guessed there was some reason. Of course, I wouldn't want a daughter of mine to do such a thing. I would rather see her in her grave."
Her manner was emphatic and profound. It was clear that however she might forgive Lily in the eyes of the world, she had her own opinions which none should ever know but herself and Lily.
Lily blushed, the color spreading over her lovely face to the soft fringe of her hair. "You needn't worry, Cousin Hattie," she said. "Ellen would never do such a, thing. You see, Ellen is complete. She doesn't need anything but herself. She's not like me at all. She isn't weak. She would never do anything because she lost her head."
Ellen's mother, who had stopped eating, regarded her with a look of astonishment. "But your mother said you hadn't lost your head. She said it was you who wouldn't marry the Governor."
Lily's smile persisted. She leaned over to touch her cousin's hand, gently as though pleading with her to be tolerant.
"It's true," she said. "Some of what mother told you. It's true about my refusing to marry him. You see the trouble is that I'm not afraid when I should be. I'm not afraid of the things I should be afraid of. When there is danger, I can't run away. If I could run away I'd be saved, but I can't. Something makes me see it through. It's something that betrays me . . . something that is stronger than myself. That's what happened with the Governor. It was I who was more guilty than he. It is I who played with fire. If I was not unwilling, what could you expect of him . . . a man. Men love the strength of women as a refuge from their own weakness." She paused and her face grew serious. "When it was done, I was afraid . . . not afraid, you understand of bearing a child or even afraid of what people would say of me. I was afraid of losing myself, because I knew I couldn't always love him. . . . I knew it. I knew it. I knew that something had betrayed me. I couldn't give up all my life to a man because I'd given an hour of it to him. I was afraid of what he would become. Can you understand that? That was the only thing I was afraid of . . . nothing else but that. It was I who was wrong in the very beginning."
But Mrs. Tolliver's expression of bewilderment failed to dissolve before this disjointed explanation. "No," she said, "I don't understand. . . . I should think you would have wanted a home and children and a successful husband. He's been elected senator, you know, and they talk of making him president."
Lily's red lip curved in a furtive, secret, smile. "And what's that to me?" she asked. "They can make him what they like. A successful husband isn't always the best. I could see what they would make him. That's why I couldn't face being his wife. I wasn't a girl when it happened. I was twenty-four and I knew a great many things. I wasn't a poor innocent seduced creature. But it wasn't so much that I thought it out. I couldn't help myself. I couldn't marry him. Something inside me wouldn't let me. A part of me was wise. You see, only half of me loved him . . . my body, shall we say, desired him. That is not enough for a lifetime. The body changes." For a second she cast down her eyes as if in shame and Mrs. Tolliver, who never before had heard such talk, looked away, out of the tall window across the snow covered park.
"Besides," Lily continued, after a little silence, "I have a home and I have a child. Both of them are perfect. I am a very happy woman, Cousin Hattie . . . much happier than if I had married him. I know that from what he taught me . . . in that one hour."
Mrs. Tolliver regarded her now with a curious, prying, look. Plainly it was a miracle she had found in a woman who had sinned and still was happy. "But you have no husband," she said presently, with the air of presenting a final argument.
"No," replied Lily, "I have no husband."
"But that must mean something."
"Yes, I suppose it does mean something."
And then the approach of the mulatto woman put an end to the talk for the time being. When she had disappeared once more, it was Mrs. Tolliver who spoke. "You know," she said, "I sometimes think Irene would be better off if such a thing had happened to her. It isn't natural, the way she carries on. It's morbid. I've told her so often enough."
"But it couldn't have happened to Irene. She will never marry. You see Irene's afraid of men . . . in that way. Such a thing I'm sure would drive her mad." And Lily bowed her lovely head for a moment. "We must be good to Irene. She can't help being as she is. You see she believes all love is a kind of sin. Love, I mean, of the sort you and I have known."
At this speech Mrs. Tolliver grew suddenly tense. Her large, honest face became scarlet with indignation. "But it isn't the same," she protested. "What I knew and what you knew. They're very different things. My love was consecrated."
Lily's dark eyes grew thoughtful. "It would have been the same if I had married the Governor. People would have said that we loved each other as you and Cousin Charles love each other. They wouldn't have known the truth. One doesn't wash one's dirty linen in public."
Her cousin interrupted her abruptly. "It is not the same. I could not have had children by Charlie until I was married to him. I mean there could have been nothing like that between us beforehand."
"That's only because you were stronger than me," said Lily. "You see I was born as I am. That much I could not help. There are times when I cannot save myself. You are more fortunate. Irene is like me. That is the reason she behaves as she does. After all, it is the same thing in us both."
But Mrs. Tolliver, it was plain to be seen, understood none of this. It was quite beyond her simple code of conduct. Her life bore witness to her faith in the creed that breaking the rules meant disaster.
"I know," continued Lily, "that I was lucky to have been rich. If I had been poor it would have been another matter. I should have married him. But because I was rich, I was free. I was independent to do as I wished, independent . . . like a man, you understand. Free to do as I pleased." All at once she leaned forward impulsively. "Tell me, Cousin Hattie . . . it has not made me hard, has it? It has not made me old and evil? It has not made people dislike me?"
Mrs. Tolliver regarded her for a moment as if weighing arguments, seeking reasons, why Lily seemed content and happy despite everything. At length, finding no better retort, she said weakly, "How could they dislike you? No one ever knew anything about it."
A look of triumph shone in Lily's dark eyes. "Ah, that's it!" she cried. "That's it! They didn't know anything, so they don't dislike me. If they had known they would have found all sorts of disagreeable things in me. They would have said, 'We cannot speak to Lily Shane. She is an immoral woman.' They would have made me into a hard and unhappy creature. They would have created the traits which they believed I should possess. It is the knowing that counts and not the act itself. It is the old story. It is worse to be found out in a little sin than to commit secretly a big one. There is only one thing that puzzles them." She raised her slim, soft hands in a little gesture of badinage. "Do you know what it is? They can't understand why I have never married and why I am not old and rattly as a spinster should be. It puzzles them that I am young and fresh."
For a time Mrs. Tolliver considered the dark implications of this speech. But she was not to be downed. "Just the same, I don't approve, Lily," she said. "I don't want you to think for a minute that I approve. If my daughter had done it, it would have killed me. It's not right. One day you will pay for it, in this world or the next."
At this threat Lily grew serious once more and the smoldering light of rebellion came into her eyes. She was leaning back in her old indolent manner. It was true that there was about her something inexpressibly voluptuous and beautiful which alarmed her cousin. It was a dangerous, flaunting beauty, undoubtedly wicked to the Presbyterian eyes of Mrs. Tolliver. And she was young too. At that moment she might have been taken for a woman in her early twenties.
After a time she raised her head. "But I am happy," she said, defiantly, "completely happy."
"I wish," said Mrs. Tolliver with a frown, "that you wouldn't say such things. I can't bear to hear you."
And presently the talk turned once more to Irene. "She is interested in this young fellow called Krylenko," said Mrs. Tolliver. "And your mother is willing to have her marry him, though I can't see why. I would rather see her die an old maid than be married to a foreigner."
"He is clever, isn't he?" asked Lily.
"I don't know about that. He made all this trouble about the strike. Everything would be peaceful still if he hadn't stirred up trouble. Maybe that's being clever. I don't know."
"But he must be clever if he could do all that. He must be able to lead the workers. I'm glad he did it, myself. The Harrison crowd has ruled the roost long enough. It'll do them good to have a jolt . . . especially when it touches their pocketbooks. I saw him once, myself. He looks like a powerful fellow. I should say that some day you will hear great things of him."
Mrs. Tolliver sniffed scornfully. "Perhaps . . . perhaps. If he is, it will be because Irene made him great. All the same I can't see her marrying him . . . a common immigrant . . . a Russian!"
"You needn't worry. She won't. She could never marry him. To her he isn't a man at all. He's a sort of idea . . . a plaster saint!" And for the first time in all her discussion of Irene a shade of hard scorn colored her voice.