Two Christmas Eves

by Patricia Wentworth

 

Two Christmas Eves

By Patricia Wentworth
Winner of the Melrose Novel Prize

IT WAS on the Christmas Eve a year after Mrs. Ames first became his secretary that John Alden, M. P., asked her to be his wife. For the first six months he had thought her a very good secretary. For the last six months he had been gradually ceasing to think of her as a secretary at all. She was Lucy to him—Lucy, the woman whose hand was on the pulses of his heart; and every day those pulses throbbed more strongly. He wondered how long her husband had been dead, and if she had loved him, and if he had loved her. He wished he knew more about her. “She is very young to be so alone in life—” That was what kind, vague Lady Caleott had said of her. Then he had cared too little to ask more, now he cared far too much.

Thoughts that he could not utter burned in him continually, but when on that first Christmas Eve he tried to give them voice, the halting words turned traitor and all the happy flow of language which filled the House when Alden was up deserted him. He stammered out he hardly knew what, saying he loved her, calling her by her name, and then dead silence fell; and through it Lucy Ames stared at him with eyes unnaturally wide and dark. It was the horror in them that gave him words at last, and—“What is it?” he said, and made an abrupt movement that sent his chair over with a crash.

A little sighing breath came between Lucy Ames's white lips. Her left hand the hand with the wedding ring on it—relaxed, and the papers it held came fluttering down and lay about her feet.

“What is it?” repeated John Alden, and at the insistence in his voice she shivered a little and looked at him; but strangely, or as if he were a stranger.

“What are you asking me?” she said, all on one low, whispered tone.

“Lucy!” His voice shocked her back to full consciousness again. “Lucy, what did you think? What could you think? To be my wife—my dear wife.”

She trembled a little more and her eyes widened.

“Oh, but you know—you know I can't!” she said, and put out her hand as if to keep him away; but in that moment he knew she loved him, and he laughed aloud—the deep, pleasant laugh that told of a warm, sound nature.

“Why can't you, Lucy dear?” he said. “Are you so sure you can't? I think you can. Won't you try? Won't you try if you can like me well enough, my dear?” And he took the small, groping hand and kissed it very gently.

Lucy Ames snatched her hand away and rose to her feet with a sob. She stood there shaking all over, and there was something in her face that stopped John Alden's laughter and stopped his tender words.

“You don't know?” she cried almost wildly. “You really don't know? Oh, how is it possible?”

“Lucy, what is it?” asked the man.

“My husband—” said Lucy Ames, in a whisper that seemed to fill the room and shake it.

“You are a widow!”

He spoke almost roughly.

“No!” in that same whisper.

“Oh, God! Lucy, are you sure?”

She gave a wild little laugh that sobbed itself into a groan.

“Sure? Oh!”

There was a long pause. Then John Alden moved a few paces and caught the edge of the mantelpiece in a grip that left a red line across his palm.

“He deserted you?” he said at last.

“No——”

“Where is he? You don't live with him?”

His voice was full of horror. All this time, while she was in his heart, while he had been thinking of her as his wife, had she been going home each day not to the lonely room he had fancied, but to another man, to a husband's arms? The thought sickened him right through to the core of his clean love for her; but her answer came quick and breathless, with the thought.

“No, no! Oh, I thought you knew! He is in an asylum. He is mad.”

The revulsion flooded his voice with warmth.

“Oh, you poor child!” he said. And Lucy gave a little cry.

“Oh, don't! What must you think? I thought you knew—oh, I did indeed! You didn't ask any questions, and I thought it was because you were so kind, because it was such a dreadful thing to speak of. I thought Lady Calcott had told you——”

John Alden gave a short, hard laugh.

“I suppose she thought she had. You know what she's like—her sentences that never finish, and her stories that trail off into something quite different. And I wasn't so interested then. She said you were alone in the world, and I thought it meant the usual thing. I was a fool——” There was another silence.

Then he swung away from her and spoke again, looking into the glowing fire, both elbows on the mantelpiece. “How long ago was it? Do you mind telling me? I should like to know a little more.”

She made a half step toward him and then drew back, clasping her hands and standing with her head bent, her eyes on his averted face.

“I should like to tell you. You should have known. I thought you did know. I never thought it possible you didn't. You do believe that?”

“Yes, yes!”

“OH, thank you!” She paused, bit her lip, and began to speak in a low, hurried way. “There isn't very much to tell. I can't remember my father and mother. Some cousins brought me up. They weren't very kind. You see, there was no money. When I was seventeen Mr. Ames wanted to marry me. He had a good appointment at the Admiralty. I suppose they thought it would be a provision. They told me I ought to marry him and not be a burden, so I did it. They didn't tell me that his father had been mad or that he had a brother in an asylum then.”

John Alden smothered an oath. Lucy's simplicity had always been one of her chief charms for him. He realized now how it had been used to destroy her. He hoped the curse about the millstone and the depths of the sea applied to her cousins. From the bottom of his heart he hoped it and believed that it did.

“What happened?” he said, and bent his head upon his arms.

A shudder ran all over Lucy's slim figure. “At first I thought he was just strange,” she said. “And then his brother Gerald came out of the asylum. They said he was all right, but, oh, he wasn't—not really! I never thought he was. He frightened me so. You see, he liked me—in a horrible sort of way. He liked being with me, and he used to say he'd have married me himself if his brother hadn't been in such a hurry; and I used to be so frightened I didn't know what to do.”

John Alden bit his lip till the blood came. If she would be quick—if she would only be quick—if she would only reach the end! His poor, frightened child! He dared not turn his head, for if he were to see her tremble he knew no power on earth could keep him from taking her in his arms.

“Go on!” he said, in a smothered voice.

Lucy put one hand to her lips and drew an unsteady breath. “One night,” she said, in a whisper, “one night they quarreled—the brothers—about me. Oh, they were mad then! Mr. Ames said I had come between them. Oh, I didn't want to! He said he didn't want me any more—his brother could have me, or any one—I was to go away. And Gerald said, 'No; come here to me, Lucy.' I saw that they were mad, a I ran right out of the house; and there was a policeman there, and I told him, and he fetched a doctor and they took them away. Every one was very kind. Lady Calcott came to see. She had known my mother and she had me taught typing and shorthand, so that I could earn my living. You see, there was very little money. They are still the asylum—at least, Mr. Ames is. His brother died last year.”

John Alden half turned his head.

“Is that where you go when you ask for a day off—to the asylum?”

He had the instinct that drives a man to ask the thing which, answered, will be salt on the raw wound.

“Yes,” she sald.

“You see him him.”

“No; they say it would be very bad for him. He is so excited if my name is mentioned. So I don't go in—I just see the doctor and come away.

“How long has he been there? What do they say? Is he likely to get better?”

“I don't know. They say you never can tell. He has been there five years. It was on my eighteenth birthday that it it happened

There was a very long silence.

THEN Lucy bent down and began picking up the scattered papers she had let fall. When she had put them all tidily in their places she hesitated, and then said in a low voice.

“Mr. Alden——”

He drew himself up and turned.

“Mr. Alden——”

“What is it? Don't look like that, child!”

“Mr. Alden, I ought—I ought to leave you.”

“Do you want to?”

“Oh, please—you know it's not that; but you know I ought——”

“Because of what I said just now?”

She nodded, unable to speak.

Perhaps when Eve, her Paradise forbid, looked back and saw the Angel's flaming sword, her eyes also dazzled with sudden tears—her voice, too, refused to answer the will's summons.

Poor Lucy Ames had never lived in Eden at all. All her life had been spent in a place of stones and thistles——of hardness and sharp pricks. She had just had one little glimpse inside the sheltering walls, had seen that the sun shone there, that there the fruit of happiness ripened, and the waters of comfort sprang; and then—the Angel with the sword, and the shut gate—the gate that she ought not only to close, but to lock—the gate that she was locking and closing now. her Adam walked up and down for a moment without replying. Then he came close to her and took her hand.

“Lucy, look at me,” he said. And she looked up, with brimming eyes “Lucy, tell me—which is the best thing for you? If you stay here, you can trust me—I'll not say a word, nor touch your hand, nor so much as look. I can do it But if it's better for you to go, you shall.”

Here was reprieve. A good woman always thinks that love may very well wear friendship's dress and conform to friendship's rules. She throws herself with utter trust upon the man's self-command and tries it in most unconscious temptation with the whole weight of his love for her.

Lucy put out her hand impulsively.

“Oh, you are good!” she cried. “Oh, indeed, I don't want to go!”

John went hastily back to the fire.

“Very well,” he said, in tones which she thought a little dry. “Very well, then. I shall expect you as usual on the second. Good-night.”

And after a little pause Lucy said good-night, too, and went out, wondering why his manner had so suddenly changed and why he didn't look at her when he spoke or move to open the door.

THE new arrangement lasted three months, and to John Alden they were three months of such strain that he never knew how he got through them. Lucy made it very hard. She was so happy. She knew he cared for her. She came every day to his house. She worked for him, and had only to look up from her work to see him there, quite close so close that a step would have brought him to her side. He never took that step, and her presence grew to be a burning torment.

He suffered as the man suffers who dies impotently of thirst, with water—cool, exquisite water of the wonder spring—just out of reach. Only in his case the water was not out of reach. It was there, under his hand—his to take; and he must turn his head away and clinch his hand and die of thirst. He bore it until one day, in bringing him some papers, Lucy just laid her hand on his and said, in her pretty, soft way,

“Oh, how cold you are! You should have a fire. Shall I light it?”

And her touch lighted one she could not as easily put out. Cold! He put his other hand over hers and felt the flame of passion flare horribly. The noise of its roaring was in his ears. He gripped her wrist and looked at the marks his fingers made—looked as a man looks at something terrible. Then, with a wrench that shook his whole being, he turned from her and strode to the window and flung it up.

“Oh, you hurt me!” cried Lucy, bewildered; and he leaned far out and filled his lungs with the east wind before he turned and answered,

“Yes; and you must go, Lucy, or I shall hurt you more!”

She cried like a child when he made his meaning plain. The pleasant game of make-believe was over. She had thought him a god, and he was only a man, after all. Reality seemed incredibly ugly, inconceivably cruel. She was very forlorn and alone, and she was only three-and-twenty. John Alden never knew how he let her go, but she went, and he found her work with a philanthropic lady and got a man secretary for himself.

He went to see Lucy once a month, and every time he found her a little whiter, a little lonelier, a little dearer. She didn't like the philanthropic lady, who was much too philanthropic to consider a secretary as anything but a machine. She missed John terribly. It was dreadful to forget and look up from her work and see the philanthropic lady's sharp nose and cold, gray eyes, instead of John's nose, which was such a comfortable shape, and John's eyes, which were so full of kindness for her. She felt as if she were in a world without a sun, and there wasn't even starlight or firelight to take its place.

With a woman's cruel sweetness she let him see it all, and every time he left her it was harder to go, until at last it was too hard and he asked her if she would brave the world with him. His career didn't seem to matter, nothing seemed to matter except Lucy and the fact that Lucy was fretting her heart out. She looked at him with piteous, bewildered eyes. She had not meant to make it hard for him or tempt him. He seemed so strong, she had not known that he was suffering so. She began to cry like a child, but the burden of her sobs was still the same:

“Oh, no, no! Oh, they mustn't do anything wicked!” And, “Oh, please, please, John, won't you go away now?”

So he went, cursing himself.

It was another Christmas Eve before he came again. He had a good grip of himself once more, but it cost him so much that he did not notice how silent Lucy was. She was dressed to go out, and she had her back to the light and sat quit still, with her hands lying limply in her lap, while he told her he had been offered a colonial governorship and thought he had better take it.

“We can't go on like this, Lucy,” he said, and waited for her to speak; but she only sat still, and at last he noticed that her face had a frozen look and that there was no expression in her eyes.

“Lucy,” he said sharply, “have you been listening? Did you hear what I told you?”

And her eyelids just flickered as she said, “No.”

“Why, Lucy!” he exclaimed, and came across the room to her. ““What is it? What is the matter? Lucy, child!”

She moved one of the limp hands then, and he saw a folded letter on her knee.

“Lucy!” he said, and took it. Then he read it and understood.

The letter was from the doctor at the asylum. Mr. Ames was very much better—was, in fact, restored to health. He desired to see his wife—he wanted to go home. There was no reason why Mrs. Ames should not fetch him away. He wanted to spend Christmas with his wife.

John Alden crushed the letter in his hand.

“Is this the first you've heard?”

She shook her head mechanically.

“No. A fortnight ago they wrote; they said he had been improving steadily ever since I was there last. His one desire now is to come—home.”

“And you—you, Lucy?”

She looked up at him—a heartrending look.

“What can I do? He is ill, they say—he has nowhere else to go. They had no relations. He wants to come home—to come here—for Christmas.”

HER BREATH failed her on the last word. John Alden looked at her and spoke harshly:

“I won't have it! You're not fit! There are nursing homes—let him go to one. You can visit him.”

She shook her head again. “There's so little money.”

“Lucy!”

“No, no! I couldn't let you, John, you know I couldn't let you! I've got to do it! I'm going now. Oh, John, can't you help me?”

He did forget everything, then, but her need.

“Yes, my dear, yes,” he said, and put his arm round her quite steadily and gently.

They went together. She wondered afterward whether she could have gone alone. She did not think she could. They did not speak at all, but when the cab drove up and they got out Lucy caught his arm and kept her hand on it, holding so tight that she bruised the flesh. Then they were shown into a room, and still neither of them spoke. There were Christmas decorations about, sprigs of holly over the pictures, and whitened sprays of ivy framing a Christmas motto. “Peace and Good-will,” were the words, and Lucy read them over and over, quicker and quicker, with the desperate feeling that if she could keep on and never stop or falter it would keep the silence from being broken and keep her from screaming aloud.

There were steps outside, and still she read the meaningless words over and over and over again. Her lips were quite white and stiff. She wondered how she should speak and what she should say. She wondered if he would kiss her, and how she should bear it if he did, and John there to watch. Oh, had she ever been very, very wicked to be punished in such a dreadful way as this!

The steps were at the door. Her pulses beat time to them. She thought they would never stop treading, treading on her heart. Then the handle of the door turned, and she put her hand quickly to her lips, with a little gasp—a breath of sheer panic terror. The door opened so slowly that she thought it would never stop, and two men came in and stopped just inside the door. One was the gray-haired doctor of the asylum, and the other, who hung limping on his arm—the other, white-faced, furtive-eyed——

“Oh!” said Lucy Ames, on a long, shaking breath. “Oh!” And she began to tremble and to catch her breath and laugh.

“Now, Mrs. Ames!” said the doctor sternly. And the white-faced man let go of his companion's arm and put out his hand.

“Lucy!” he said, in a queer, weak voice. “Lucy—my wife——”

But Lucy was clinging to John Alden and fighting for breath and words.

“Oh, I'm not—he's not—” she gasped. And John Alden's hand closed on her wrist like a vice.

“Be quiet!” he said roughly. “Lucy, stop—stop, I say! Pull yourself together! No! you can if you try—no—stop at once—at once!”

She obeyed, panting.

“Now, what do you mean? Isn't this your husband?”

And Lucy answered,

“Oh, no, no, no! Oh, what does it mean? It's Gerald—it's my husband's brother Gerald——”

The doctor started and looked fromthe trembling lady to his cringing patient.

“What's this?” he said, in a sharp voice. And John Alden asked,

“You're sure, Lucy? You are quite sure?”

“Oh, yes, yes! Oh, John——”

“Hush, Lucy! Dr. Clarke, there's a mistake somewhere. You've two brothers here. Mrs. Ames says this is the wrong one Where's the other?”

Dr. Clarke coughed.

“Dead,” he said shortly. “Died eighteen months ago.”

“Oh, yes,” said Lucy; “but it was Gerald who died—you said it was Gerald!”

The white-faced man looked over his shoulder at the doctor and edged toward Lucy.

“It's all right,” he said, in a low voice. “It's all right, I tell you, Lucy. We changed names and all, and he threw you in. He'd got tired of you, and I wanted you, and you're my wife now. Tell her it's all right, doctor. Tell her she's my wife, my wife Lucy that I'm going home to spend Christmas with. Come and give me a kiss, Lucy. Isn't it funny, doctor? She's my wife, and I've never even kissed her yet. I think she might give me a kiss, and Christmas Eve and all.”

“Well, you must come and pack first,” said Dr. Clarke abruptly; and as the two went out he beckoned John to follow.

Lucy was left alone. She sat down on a chair and tried to think, but felt too dazed. Suddenly she began to cry, and was somehow glad that she could cry for her husband, who had been dead for nearly two years, and dead to her for five.

When she had cried her fill she looked up, and there was the Christmas motto on the wall before her—“Peace and Good-will.” Peace for the dead, and good-will—yes, good-will to every one. It seemed to mean something to her now.

She looked at the words with swimming eyes, and then John Alden came in and took her in his arms. They did not speak—they did not kiss. They just stood there together and knew their path in life was one henceforward.

“Peace and good-will,” he said very low, and his voice shook. “Peace and good-will, and God bless the New Year!”